In 2017, Jayna Zweiman — a Los Angeles-based architect and artist who had recently co-founded the Pussyhat Project — found herself thinking about walls. Specifically, the proposed 2,000-mile barrier along the United States' southern border. Instead of protesting it, she asked a different question: what would 2,000 miles of yarn look like, if it were made into blankets and given to the people the wall was meant to keep out?
That question became Welcome Blanket. Crafters — knitters, quilters, crocheters, sewers, weavers, felters — were invited to make a 40-by-40-inch lap blanket and include a personal note: their own family's story of immigration, migration, or relocation, along with words of welcome for whoever received it. The only other instruction was characteristically precise: it should hurt a little to give away.
The response surprised everyone. Thousands of blankets arrived from across the country and beyond. They were first exhibited as art installations — at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, then at the Museum of Design Atlanta, then at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts, among many others — before being distributed through refugee resettlement agencies to families beginning new lives. Each blanket arrived with its maker's note still attached. Zweiman's work was nominated for the Beazley Design of the Year by the Design Museum in London, and a collection of blankets was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The project has since grown far beyond its original ambition. Over 8,000 blankets have been collected. Zweiman has now set a new goal: 36,521 blankets — enough, placed end to end, to stretch the full circumference of the Earth at 24,901 miles. Pittsburgh launched a coordinated citywide effort in late 2025, running through March 2026, with blankets distributed through local refugee organisations including Hello Neighbor and Jewish Family and Community Services. Participants are asked only to make, write, and log their blanket — so the planet-sized goal can be tracked, stitch by stitch.
Zweiman has described her hope simply: that Welcome Blanket becomes a new American tradition, and that every refugee family receives this symbolic and practical gesture of welcome.