…and in honor of the dedication of the WWII Memorial in Washington, DC, the American Red Cross is offering for sale vintage reproductions of wartime “Knit Your Bit” knitting kits (a better picture is on this page. From what I understand the kits they’re offering for sale have one large skein rather than the three smaller ones in this picture.).
There’s also a nifty little Red Cross in WWII history thingie here, and a whole mess of WWII Red Cross knitting patterns here.
They’re a little pricey - 25 bucks a pop - but dang if they aren’t almost cute enough to make me take up the hobby.
All proceeds go to the Red Cross, of course, which still, even in this age of instant communications, sends emergency messages to troops stationed around the world.
But we no longer take socks.
Thanks much for Tuba and Ed for permission to post this!
Wow, that’s cool! Thanks 'specially for the link to the better picture. I’m strongly considering ordering a mess of these as gifts for my knitting friends. I know a couple who don’t have any double-pointed needles yet, and will totally groove on the vintage styling!
I have some a couple of vintage sock patterns off the web. The most memorable instruction was to never ever start a new ball of yarn by tying a knot, because our boys abroad don’t have the chance to change their socks often, so the knot can keep rubbing at the same place and create a blister, which can become infected and gangrenous, causing loss of limb and/or life!!!
That’s right ladies; your lousy finishing skills could kill one of our boys in uniform! :eek:
This is high-stakes crafting, folks!
(In case anyone’s wondering, the correct way to start a new ball is to overlap the yarn with the end of the yarn from the old ball for a few inches, do a few stitches with doubled yarn, then work in the ends. This looks a lot better than tying a knot, is actually more durable, and if you don’t do it, you might as will be knitting socks for the Nazis! Also, every time you drop a stitch, God kills a puppy.)
