So I started this project for two reasons: 1) to tackle my own personal issues with discipline (and I’m struggling to work through that… my current battle? Not paying attention to the calendar and letting time slip through) and 2) to learn more about historical craftivism. But the truth is for this one, WWI knitting, even though I’m keeping it to 2 hours of research, just kept being too daunting, given all the work being done all over the world for others. However, I am determined to get 48 acts up in 48 weeks, so there may be some fudging of the technical “weeks” on the calendar while I push through my own discipline issues… Apologies to all you (k)nitpicky readers out there…
Anyhoo… here we go… WWI knitting! This was especially daunting because we all know that there was knitting for the troops in WWI. But, where do we go to look for more information? That seems to be the question on this topic. So, I’m linking to various archives and fonts of information here as the breadth is too much for 1 (or even 100) blog posts.
The “Grey Sock” pattern by Irene Victoria Read: Knitting for Victory: Transatlantic Propaganda in WWI & WWII
Volunteer work on the homefront: America During WWI and WWII


Needlework and Knitting Instructions for First World War volunteers over on Scribd uploaded by the British Red Cross
The “Knit Your Bit” poster you may very well be familiar with, but check out the other posters here related to WWI propaganda:

More info on Irene Read, and her “Grey Sock kit,” complete with teeny tiny photo of said sock kit!


There are also 2 older posts here about WWI and knitting, which you will find here and here.
This photo is probably the most fascinating… it’s an interned German doing macrame at Fort Douglas…

And in keeping with last week’s post about the Civil War and knitting, here’s a little bit from the wonderful book No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting:
“At the sound of war, former Civil War knitters quickly surfaced. One eighty-eight-year-old who had accompanied her husband on Civil War assignments taught knitting to children in a Takoma Park, Maryland, church. Many still-spry United Daughters of the Confederacy who once knit for “Johnny Reb” now contributed over 600,000 knit articles for “Sammy.” Instead of gloves or stockings, a grandmother who proudly snapped on her Red Cross button “in place of her accustomed brooch” made “stump socks” to fit over amputated limbs. Seventy-two-year-old Mrs. Mitt Osgood, who lived on a Montana cattle ranch eighty miles from a railroad, knit 18 pairs of socks in twenty days and completed 120 pairs between February and September, 1918.”
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