MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minneapolis VA has stopped accepting donated quilts for wounded soldiers and other veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying it has run out of room to store them.

Veterans Affairs spokesman Ralph Heussner told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis for a story published Thursday that reports that it stopped accepting the quilts over a fear of bedbugs are untrue, and that the VA’s supply rooms are simply full.

In an April 6 letter to “knitters, crocheters, quilters and seamstresses,” Katharina Ryan, the director of the Voluntary/Community Resource Center of the Minneapolis VA, described the problem:

“Thanks to your skill, talents and dedication to helping our hospitalized veterans of the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, we have an overabundant supply of lap robes, quilts, blankets, neck pillows, armrest pillows, heart pillows, slippers and laundry bags,” she wrote. “We are unable to accept any of these items until further notice.”

Local leaders of Quilts of Valor said they were told by VA officials in Minneapolis earlier this month that the decision was part of a nationwide directive because of an outbreak of bedbugs at a VA homeless shelter in another state. They were told the restriction is expected to last at least six months.

Page Johnson, the southern Minnesota coordinator for Quilts of Valor, said the VA’s concerns are understandable, though she disputed that her group’s quilts could harbor bedbugs.

“We’re dealing with new fabrics, people take this very seriously, everything is kept clean, there is no contact where it would get something like that,” Johnson said. “Bedbugs come from humans using the quilts and they are not used, they are new. I can assure you we are not using these things and giving away used items.”

Heussner said that while bedbugs are always a concern, the real issue is drawing down an oversupply of quilts. Once that’s done, the VA will start accepting them again.

Volunteers with Quilts of Valor get together in their basements and spare bedrooms, in sewing clubs and at shops that cater to quilters and sewers. The quilts are put together using donated fabric with a label listing the quilter and her hometown.

The Upper Midwest Chapter of Quilts of Valor distributed 1,881 quilts in 2010, up from 1,399 in 2009. Since its founding in Delaware in 2004, the group has distributed more than 37,000 quilts nationwide.

“It’s hard work but it’s been a really good way to do something you love and to give back to people who have given so much,” said Marcia Stevens, who started a Brainerd Quilts of Valor group in 2005.

And there’s no quit in the quilters. They’re still giving quilts to Guard and Reserve soldiers with three or more deployments. County veterans service officers have asked for quilts. Minneapolis police recently distributed quilts to homeless vets on the streets. The Minnesota Veterans Homes, which operate independently of the federal VA system, continue to accept them.

“The fact is we can’t make enough quilts to cover all the wounded; we can’t even come close,” Johnson said.