Crochet: when spies used knitting as a special tool When secret messages made by unsuspecting tricoteuses OO7 were hidden behind knit and purl stitches

Behind the knitting - today a trend loved by celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker and Ella Emhof and by many fashion brands - hides a world of exciting adventures and mysteries, of intrigues and secret codes, of harmless-looking heroines who, thanks to this hobby, have contributed to the fate of epochal conflicts. Think about it. There is nothing more unsuspected than a woman knitting. Therefore, over the centuries there are many spies who chose this practice as a cover. From the French Revolution to World War II, spies have used knit and purl to disguise other activities or to hide actual secret messages in the scheme.  Their names and daring exploits remained in the shadows for a long time, but now more and more magazines such as the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, blogs as Atlas Obscura or book as Sul filo di lana by Loretta Napoleoni are bringing to light the stories of Louise de Bettignies, Madame Levengle, Phyllis Latour Doyle, and other spy knitters.

Knit & purl

With the end of the great wars, knitting assumed new meanings. In the 1960s, for hippies knitting and making their own clothes was a stand against capitalism and standardization. More recently, in the 2000s, the Revolutionary Knitting Circle movement called for people to use knitting needles as a way to rebel against globalization, while in the same period, the colorful street art and spontaneous movement against any discrimination known as Yarn bombing or Guerilla knitting was born in Texas. And what about the Pussyhat activists? The movement protesting Donald Trump's inauguration in the White House, with their pink beanies featuring cat ears, which are a symbol of women empowerment and were made by Knitty City, a knitting and crochet shop in New York's Upper West Side, colored the 2017 Women's March.