There's a quiet but powerful movement afoot in the knitting community. It started at Needle & Skein, a full-service yarn store in Saint Louis Park, Minnesota. Wanting to do something to protest the presence of ICE in his state, Paul Neary decided to look back in time for inspiration, and he found it in 1940s Norway. As Neary explains in his "Melt The Ice Hat" pattern,

"In the 1940s, Norwegians made and wore red pointed hats with a tassel as a form of visual protest against the Nazi occupation of their country. Within two years, the Nazis made these protest hats illegal and punishable by law to wear, make or distribute. As purveyors of traditional craft, we felt it appropriate to revisit this design."

Paul Neary, "Melt the Ice Hat," available on Ravelry and through Needle & Skein (needleandskein.com)

"We felt it appropriate to revisit this design." We love the understatement. All proceeds from the sale of the pattern ($5) go to Minnesota Immigration Aid organizations. Over $650,000 has been raised, and the pattern has been sold in 43 countries. The movement might have started in a quiet corner of a Minnesota yarn store, but it's big now, and it's growing. This is what happens when you have a lot of people ready to take a stand and put their pointed sticks to work.

In fact, the red cap's association with liberty has a much longer history, going back to Ancient Greece where former Phrygian slaves wore red pointed caps to signify their emancipation. Romans picked up the association and bestowed red caps on freed slaves as part of their manumission ceremony. In the American Revolution, Paul Revere carved a liberty cap on a stone obelisk in the Boston Common, and local towns often placed a red liberty cap on a pole or tree to signify their allegiance to the resistance. The tradition was continued during the French Revolution with Lady Liberty sporting a red cap and her followers donning the famous "bonnet rouge." Early draft designs of the Statue of Liberty even showed her with a red cap instead of a crown. Perhaps most surprising is the Seal of the U.S. Senate--take a close look, and oh, what's that you see? Could it be a little red liberty cap at the top? The irony.

So we are buying red yarn and knitting "Melt the Ice" hats these days. We want to be part of the red liberty cap history, because, well, it's our history. Join us.

First we want to say that we love that there is a British show about knitting. Period. Full stop. And we love that Tom Daley is the host--he is warm, funny and good humored about testing the knitted deck chairs the contestants make with his well-sculpted butt. But knitters that we are, would Bootie and Bossy go on the show? Let's be clear: NO ONE IS ASKING US. We also don't live in the UK. But the answer is still a definite "No." For one, we would never subject anyone--even an Olympic swimmer with a flawless body--to wearing a swimsuit we had designed and knitted. "Game of Wool: Britain's Best Knitter" is a bit of a misnomer--we are reminded Mike Meyers's famous character of Linda Richman on Saturday Night Live who might have said, "I am feeling verklempted. I'll give you a topic: 'The show is neither a game, nor about wool or knitting.' Discuss amongst yourselves." There's a lot of crochet in this knitting show, which is kind of like mixing coffee and tea, as any fiber artist with an ounce of reverence for the two crafts will tell you. Plenty of accomplished knitters follow patterns as written with great creativity in selecting the material and colors, but the show often expected serious design skills, which left some some contestants in the dust from the start. And the time constraint of 12 hours meant contestants had to use bulky wool with needles the size of shotguns. As one contestant, Holger, remarked:

"Asking me to express myself in chunky yarn is like asking a vegetarian to express themselves with only something like steak." Later he would say, "The method I am using is pure and utter desperation."

Holger Auffenberg, "Game of Wool: Britain's Best Knitter," Episode 1.

Here's the thing: we loved the contestants sporting their own handknits, and we wanted to know more about them. Where was the camera crew following them back to their homes so we could meet their kids and parents and learn more about what inspired them? As one of the judges Di Gilpin said, "Knitting generally is all about telling a story." What a great premise! How about following it? Tell us the stories behind Tom Daley's outfits!

So we want another season where they get it right and tell more stories about the contestants, the judges, and knitting with something other than bulky yarn. The craft of knitting deserves this. We promise to watch the second season, but in the meantime, we will be busy eating Oreo Cookie Truffles because Valentine's Day is just around the corner, so we have to leave healthy behind (that phase lasted long, didn't it?!). This is the perfect homemade treat for your Valentine or Galentine or Palentine, or just for yourself--try it!

So it's the New Year. Hooray. And maybe like us you opened up that closet to put back the decorations and thought, "Do we need all of this? What's in these boxes anyway?" Perhaps your thoughts have now turned to your stash--not your drug stash, or a stash of stolen goods, the word's original meaning when it first entered English usage in 1914. We're talking about your yarn stash. Is it a source of inspiration to you, or an albatross? We are here to help. In typical Bootie and Bossy fashion, we decided the best way to tackle this was first to read about it, and then to talk about it, because you don't want to be too hasty and spring into action too quickly here. So we read A Stash of One's Own: Knitters on Loving, Living with, and Letting Go of Yarn, a wonderful collection of essays edited by Clara Parkes. Because a yarn stash is not just a pile of random string, as Parkes explains, "Yarn holds energy (literally twist), but it also holds energy in the form of memories . . . Every knitter will be able to pick up skein from her stash--any skein--and tell you a complete and compelling story about it" (p. 109). This might be why Stephanie Pearl-McPhee cannot get rid of the ball of yarn her daughters gifted her, even though it’s so pink and shiny it looks exactly like “what you’d get if Barbie and My Little Pony dropped acid and tried to come up with a colorway” (p. 32).

As much as your yarn stash is a kind of fiber scrapbook—especially that vacation yarn that’s “all larded up with sentiment and emotion and meaning to the point where you weep slightly when recalling the now defunct yarn shop where you bought it" (Ann Shayne, p. 46)—it’s also connects you to the future. At its core, a stash is a repository of hope, as Anna Maltz explains:

"There is a deep optimism in how much we acquire and keep around, and in our belief that we can make and learn from that vast quantity in a single lifetime.

Anna Maltz, “Moving Yarn/Portable Stories,” in A Stash of One’s Own, p. 79.

For Debbie Stoller, having a stash is also an empowering feminist act:

"[A] yarn stash makes a pretty large statement to the world that a woman is planning to spend hours—nay, years—of her life engaging in something that doesn’t promise to make her skinnier or look younger or give her a tighter butt. Something that won’t make her a better mother, or a better wife . . . It announces to the world that she has decided to do something just for herself in pursuit of only one thing: pleasure.”

Debbie Stoller, "A Stash of One's Own: Yarn as a Feminist Issue," A Stash of One's Own, p. 180.

If your stash inspires and empowers you, great—keep doing what you are doing. If it starts to feel like an albatross, then there’s help for that too. As knitter and social worker Sue Shankle explains, “People have a hard enough time understanding themselves. Expecting others to ‘get’ you (or your love of beautiful yarn) is not always realistic. That’s why you need a posse. People who understand it all, no explanation necessary” (91-2).

So make a nice, warm batch of healthy Instant Pot Curry with Chickpeas, Spinach and Tomatoes, and as you contemplate your stash, know that it’s much more than just yarn in a bin—it’s your past and your future, your statement to the world of how you want to spend your time, and we understand that because we are your posse!

What's so great about 1950s America? We admit this is a trick question. It might have been great for men, but at least according to Anne Macdonald in No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting, for many women, particularly young mothers, it felt like being "trapped in a squirrel cage" of modern appliance-packed houses that feminist writer Betty Friedan would later describe as "comfortable concentration camps" (p. 323). More women dropped out of college to get the coveted "Mrs" degree and then devoted themselves to cleaning their houses and popping out kids. And they succeeded--the birth rate at the time was close to India's. But they also struggled to meet impossible and opposing expectations, as one woman memorably described it:

"I've been married ten years and I still feel my husband expects me to be a combination of Fanny Farmer and Marilyn Monroe."

--Quoted in Anne Macdonald, No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting, p. 323.

With little time and mounting resentment, the 1960s and 70s unsurprisingly ushered in Women's Lib and the era of "Jiffy Knits" with giant needles. No one is knitting for thrift anymore, but knitting still offers cures for the following ailments: nail biting; arthritis (dubbed by one woman as "Mr. Arthur," whom she successfully banished from her hands with knitting every morning); anxiety; agoraphobia; overeating; smoking; impatience and finally boredom, as many knit while waiting in the long lines during the gas shortage. But out of this period emerge the three graces of the knitting world: Mary Walker Phillips, Elizabeth Zimmerman and Barbara Walker. They bring their expertise to the masses, and we all owe them a tremendous debt.

As we approach the holiday season, we are grateful to Anne Macdonald for writing No Idle Hands, which has given us so much to talk about and stories to share. So take a moment to make a batch of biscotti, then grab your pointed sticks and settle in for some good stories about finding the bright side of things, stories that have made us smile many times over the years. And join us in declaring this the season of "Cookies for Everyone!"

Listen to this episode and you will never look at handspun yarn in quite the same way. A bold claim, we know, but that’s just one of the many things that Natasha Darius taught us in this interview. We met Natasha at Woolworks, Ltd., in Putnam, Connecticut, where she manages the volunteer-run store, teaches spinning, knits and does 10,000 other things. Growing up Haitian in Scotland, Connecticut, she did not come from a knitting family, but being a self-described old soul with an insatiable curiosity to “know all the things,” she was fascinated by the Afghans made by her friends’ mothers and grandmothers. So she went to the local library (imagine!) and checked out every book on the fiber arts. Thus began her odyssey that would lead to learning to knit and then spin at Yarns with a Twist, a local yarn store in Chaplin, CT. Eventually, she would join “Fleece to Shawl” competitions at local fairs and help others with their knitting projects at Woolworks. But it was her philosophy of spinning that most captivated us, as she explained that every fiber has a personality, an idea of what it wants to be, and each of her 28 spinning wheels has a personality and a story waiting to unfold too. Mix in Natasha’s own personality, and, well, that’s a lot of personality spinning around:

"If you are going to pick up spinning, you have to realize that there are moments where your will will not be done. If you want to enjoy the process sometimes you just have to listen to the fiber and let the fiber tell you what it wants to be . . . you can’t control everything. You are not meant to control everything. You do not get the final say of what is a good instinct. You are not the final decision maker on what’s considered beautiful or perfect. Let it do what it wants to do."

We can see that philosophy at work in how she approaches teaching spinning too, as she explained that every student has their own language for learning. The teacher’s job is to figure out what that language is by listening and observing. Her favorite part of teaching? Seeing the flicker of understanding that happens right behind her students’ eyes when they get it and all the complexity of spinning falls into place for them.

Perhaps most of all, spinning brings Natasha joy—the joy of interacting with the unique personality of each fiber and spinning wheel, and the pride and satisfaction that comes from making something from start to finish: “If you can spin it, you can make something beautiful out of anything . . . I surprise myself all the time.” And then there’s the joy of sharing it with the magical community at Woolworks.

As we enter the holiday season, we think sharing Natasha’s story about the joys of learning, making and teaching “all the things” with her local community is what we all need.

Let's go back about 85 years. It's November, 1941, and America is about to enter World War II, when once again we will discover that we are a cold-footed, sockless nation. We have been here before. Think Revolutionary War, then the Civil War, and then World War I. But coming out of the Depression when there was not much money, we have evolved. We are now a nation of knitters--10 million knitters strong according to estimates from the National Dry Goods Association. So when the men pick up their guns, women pick up their needles once again, according to Anne Macdonald in No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting. What's different? This time we have more music to knit by, like Glenn Miller's "Knit One, Purl Two" (you can ask Alexa to play it for you). Emily Post also decides on some rules of etiquette for knitting in public like "Do not wave long or shiny needles about in the air" (Macdonald, p. 304), so if you are doing that, stop it. But more than anything, accounts of knitting at the time speak to how it keeps us calm and connected, and in that way, it's good for everybody, knitters and wearers alike. Handknit garments helped the men at the front because they were

"visible evidence that someone at home has been thinking about him--a lot. ... Nothing warms the hearts of the boys away from home like articles knitted by the loving hands of those they hold near and dear."

Quoted in Anne L. Macdonald's No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting (New York: Ballantine Books, 1988), p. 294.

Knitting also helped the knitter, as writer Jane Cobb explained: Knitters "get satisfaction from the orderly row of stitches falling into patterns of accomplishment. In times like these there are few occupations that have that sort of effect. It is quite possible that women in wartime knit as much for the knitting as for what their knitting accomplished" (quoted in Macdonald, p. 298).

So as we enter the season of thanks and perhaps some panic knitting for holiday gifts, stop waving your needles, ask Alexa to play "Knit One, Purl Two," and then take a breath and a moment to enjoy the "orderly row of stitches falling into patterns of accomplishment." Then make our Pecan Pie, and we have no doubt that many hearts will be warmed.

What is it about Rhinebeck?! It's hard to believe that a modest gathering of local shepherds and 4-H Clubs to trade fleece and auction small livestock in 1980 is now a booming event attracting 30,000 people from all over the world. We met so many fascinating fiber folks, including Ting who owns a knitting store in Taiwan and three different knitting groups from Kansas City, in addition to seeing some of our favorite knitting celebs like Adele and Jimmy of Lolabean Yarn, designers Caitlin Hunter, Safiyyah Talley and Zanete, knitting gurus Patty Lyons and Carson Demers, and Gigi in all of her orange glory. We also reconnected with our friend Christina Kading and enjoyed watching her dad demonstrate how to shear a sheep. There's just a great sense of community that magically happens when a bunch of people sporting their handknit sweaters (Andrea Mowry's Ooey Gooey was well represented!) gather on a beautiful fall day on the Dutchess County Fair Grounds. Perhaps Alice Seeger, founder of Belfast Fiber Arts, said it best:

"You can make a lot of things when you spin, dye, weave, knit, or crochet . . . But the most important things are the friendships.”

Quoted in Laura Bannister's article, "Counting Sheep in Rhinebeck, New York," Vogue, October 24, 2022.

It's the Depression--the Great Depression. The economy is in the toilet, and birth rates, marriage rates, divorce rates are down, but guess what's up? Knitting! This is truly the Renaissance period for knitting according to Anne Macdonald in No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting. The National Dry Goods Association estimated that 1/12th of the population knit, or about 10 million people. Between thrifty necessity, clever yarn companies sponsoring contests and stars like Joan Crawford and Katherine Hepburn taking up the needles on set, "the knitting craze" was the upside to the economic downside of the Depression. But does knitting shut men out? Humorist Ogden Nash devoted some rhymes to the claim that knitting wives left their husbands in a world of bitter silence:

"Life will teach you many things, chief of which is that every man who talks to himself isn't necessarily out of his wits;

He may have a wife who knits. . .

Ah, my inquiring offspring, you must learn that life can be very bitter,

But never quite so much so as when trying to pry a word out of a knitter."

Ogden Nash, Not Many Years Ago, quoted in Anne Macdonald's No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting, p. 277.

So we wanted to know, does knitting shut men out? We did extensive research--okay, we asked one man--Bossy's husband. His answer? "I think knitting allows women to tolerate men." He gets a piece of Oreo cake for this answer, specifically Jevin's Victory Oreo Cake.

Who says you can't inspire academic achievement with the promise of a special cake? So make this Oreo cake and always remember the power of knitting, as the 1932 Spring issue of McCall's Decorative Arts and Needlework proclaimed, "a gaily becoming sweater blouse always makes us feel like conquering the world."

Bootie and Bossy are popping in to remind you that the deadline of October 7, 2025 for our 50th episode giveaway is fast approaching! We are giving away two Skellie kits (two winners) from the fabulous www.serialknitters.com All you need to do to enter is to sign up for our newsletter on our website: www.bootieandbossy.com That's it! Don't miss out on your chance to win!

We made it to our 50th episode, so what keeps us going? In a word, YOU. From our listeners to invited guests, to family members who helped with tech and made suggestions--to everyone who graced us with their time, support and expertise, we want to say THANK YOU. And that's why we are offering a great giveaway--two of Debie Frable's Skellie Kits will be awarded to two randomly selected subscribers to our newsletter--if you don't subscribe, it's easy to sign up through our website bootieandbossy.com. Please subscribe by October 7th, 2025 to be entered into the drawing. Thank you, Debie, for providing the fabulous Skellie kits!

"What is the meaning of life? That was all--a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one."

Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

When we first embarked on this great podcast adventure, we had no idea how meaningful it would become, offering us a series of "little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck in the dark," as Virginia Woolf wrote in her novel, To the Lighthouse. Woolf herself was an avid knitter and wrote to her husband in 1912 that "Knitting is the saving of life." Her sister Vanessa Bell even painted a portrait of her knitting quietly in a chair. The opportunity to connect with others, hear their stories and learn tidbits of history (like the whereabouts of Napoleon's penis . . . ) and share our mistakes and missteps as well as those little daily miracles, has propelled us through 50 episodes. Along the way listeners in 44 of the 50 states (time to step up, you knitters in Utah, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota!) and in 17 countries abroad have joined us.

And a good drink has helped too--try our celebratory Kir Royal--a nice glass of sparkling white wine with a splash of liquor. And then grab your pointed sticks and tune in to hear us reminisce because, well, like Mom setting off to marry Dad, we "thought that would be fun," and frankly, that's as good a reason as any to do anything.