Shh, It's a Secret!

Knot Your Grandma's Knitting...Or Is It? 

Craft History: Knitting Espionage is a Thing! 

What do espionage, Charles Dickens, and knitting have in common? 

Intelligence operatives, aka spies, use encoded messages to transmit information. In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens created a character named Madame DeFarge who used her knitting to send such messages during the French Revolution. Knitting espionage turns out to be a real thing! Some historians believe that Dickens based Mme. DeFarge’s character on an 18^th century political activist, Olympia de Gouges. 

Why is knitting useful in espionage? Think of knitting’s basic stitches, knits and purls, as Morse code or binary numbering. If you know how to combine dots and dashes or zeroes and ones to encode a message, you can use knits and purls to do the same thing. Encoded messages are simply information created using specific patterns, and what is knitting except stitched patterns of knits, purls and their variations?

Knitting seems like such an innocuous activity, but women like Phyllis Latour Doyle, a 23-year old British agent working in France, helped win World War II by sending messages encoded in their knitting. Her work was finally declassified in 2014 and she received France’s Chevalier of the Legion of Honor for her efforts. Doyle died in 2023 at the age of 102. Can you imagine being one of her grand- or great grandchildren and learning about her knitting espionage?

While the information we could find on crafty espionage talks about knitting stitches, you can also encode messages using crochet stitches, color work or needle arts. Given how well knitting works with coding, is anyone surprised that some computer scientists see knitting as a way of reinforcing learning about digital technology?

P. S.  Zorn Junction Trunk Show, Black Friday November 29, 11a-4p. This south Texas dyer specializes in boutique batches of unique colors! 

Shop News - Featured Yarn: Berroco Gimlet

There's still time to make gifts or holiday wear! Sophisticated glam plus a soft halo make Berroco Gimlet an easy choice for elegant sweaters and accessories that need to be cozy and warm. Thanks to its blown-fiber construction, this bulky-weight yarn has a feather-light feel and will work up quickly into finished projects with a silvery, understated sparkle.

Gimlet is a blend of Cotton, Alpaca, Wool, Polyester and Polyamide; it has 95 yards in each 50g ball. Hand wash, lay flat to dry. 

Spinner Saturday, November 16, 12p-4p! Bring your spinning wheel or spindle, and join others who like to turn fluff into yarn! 

Zorn Junction Trunk Show, Black Friday November 29, 11a-4p. This south Texas dyer specializes in boutique batches of unique colors! 

Bad Frog Yarn will be in-store: Saturday December 7 11a - 4p!

Savvy Skein Trunk Show, Saturday December 21, 11am - 4pm. Come see these cleverly dyed  yarns from a south Texas dyer!

Private Lessons
Learn 1x1 or in small groups with your choice of project or technique! One-on-one (one student, one teacher) Personal lessons are $25/hour & group private lessons are $15/person per hour. Visit us in-store or call 210-979-8255 to schedule. Fees due at time of scheduling. 

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Want to make your own coded project? There’s a website, knitwitter, that will help you create crochet and knit patterns using binary code. You don't need to know how to code, you simply enter a word or phrase and choose what style you want. We used knitwitter to create a Yarnivore pattern!

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