I thought I’d already written about this but turns out I only thought about writing about it. Confused?
The Stitch For Senate Project is an antiwar craft collaboration underway to coincide with the upcoming US election. Participants will be drawing on the long history of war knitting projects to knit a helmet liner for every US Senator.
Building on the tradition of wartime knitting, a practice as old as the American Revolution, Stitch for Senate revives this cultural trend by engaging with public officials about the war in Iraq. The Stitch for Senate website will compile testimonies from contributing knitters, that express everything from charity, allegiance, patriotism, resistance, and radicalism; using the tradition of political organizing within knitting circles as a space for storytelling, discussion, exchange and protest. Hobbyists knit in solidarity to persuade elected officials to support the troops by bringing them home. All the senators will receive their own helmet liner before the 2008 Senate election, after being displayed in the seating chart of the US Senate at gallery venue. Once they are received, senators can opt to send helmets to a soldier.
And they’re still looking for contributors so if you can knit and you aren’t too fond of the whole war thing, get on board.
The Stitch For Senate project is the brainchild of Cat Mazza who is one of my absolute favourite craftivists. You can check out more of her work and her blog here.
