Knits & Review〈Knitting Patterns from Wartime Britain, America, and Canada〉

Knits & Review〈Knitting Patterns from Wartime Britain, America, and Canada〉

 

Knits & Review(ニッツ・アンド・レビュー)は, 歴史的な編み図を再解釈し, 現代の視点でひらくトーク・ノンセンスのリサーチプロジェクトです. ここでの編み図は単なる作り方ではなく, ある時代の暮らしや労働, そして想像力の痕跡として立ち現れます.

 

活動は次の3つの実践(プラクティス)で構成される:

 

1. 記憶のプラクティス | Collect & Decode

一編み図や関連資料を収集し, 当時の社会や暮らしの背景を読み解く

 

2. 制作のプラクティス | Translate & Make

一現行の糸と道具で編めるかたちへ翻案し, 手を動かせる手順にする

 

3. 想像のプラクティス | Speculate & Relate

一現代の暮らしや身体を出発点に, 対話や共同実践を重ねながら新たな関連性を検証する

 

Logo design: Morio Deguchi


フィールドノーツ 

〈イギリス・アメリカ・カナダ 戦時下の編み図たち〉

プロジェクトの立ち上げ日: 2025年3月1日 〜

 

関連するワークショップ・展示

> WORKSHOP + COPYROOM/ August 23 – September 7, 2025

 

20世紀前半, 世界が戦争に覆われていた時代, 私的で親密な営みだった "編む" という行為は, 兵士や負傷兵を慰問するための社会的活動へと静かに姿を転じていった. いわゆる "ホームフロント" とも呼ばれるこの活動は, 市民が一斉に手を動かすという特異な歴史的事象であり, そこから生まれた形への工夫, インフラの整備, 労働の組織化, 規範の共有は, 今日においても容易には見出しがたい貴重な実践の痕跡として位置づけることができるだろう. 私たちはこの古い編み図を単なる歴史資料の分析にとどまらず, 現代における生産と消費の関係性を捉え直すための示唆を与えるものとしてアーカイブし, その活用のあり方を探究していく.

 

 

A Project by TALK NONSENSE


Photo
:Boys making wooden knitting needles for the Red Cross, The Red Cross Magazine, June 1918. Courtesy of the National WWI Museum and Memorial.


Photo: COMFORTS FOR THE MEN: The Columbia Book of Instructions — Knitting for the Men of the Army and Navy. Source: TALK NONSENSE archive (digitized in-house). Originally published 1917 by Wm. H. Horstmann Co. (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)


Photo: Man’s Sweater, Brooks Type (ARC 400 3-B, Code K4) Instruction Sheet. Source: TALK NONSENSE archive (digitized in-house). Originally issued December 1939 by the American Red Cross.



Photo: Knitters at the Central Park knitting bee, 1918. Courtesy of the U.S. National Archives, Record ID 23923649.


 


Photo:The Complete Knitting Book. Author: Marjory Tillotson. Source: TALK NONSENSE archive (digitized in-house). Originally published 1933 by SIR ISAAC PITMAN & SONS, LTD. (London)

 

Knits & Review is a research project by TALK NONSENSE that reinterprets historical knitting patterns through a contemporary lens.
Here, a knitting pattern is not merely a set of instructions; it is a record of lives, labor, and imagination.

 

The project consists of three core practices:

 

1. Practice of Memory | Collect & Decode

一Gathering knitting patterns and related materials to understand the social and domestic contexts in which they emerged.

 

2. Practice of Making | Translate & Make

一Adapting these patterns for use with contemporary yarns and tools, transforming them into actionable instructions.

 

3. Practice of Imagination | Speculate & Relate

一Starting from contemporary life and bodies, we examine new connections through dialogue and collective practice.

 

Logo design: Morio Deguchi


Field Notes 

〈Knitting Patterns from Wartime Britain, America, and Canada〉

Project launch date: March 1, 2025 〜

 

Related Workshops & Exhibitions

> WORKSHOP + COPYROOM/ August 23 – September 7, 2025

 

In the first half of the 20th century, when the world was engulfed in war, the act of knitting—once a private and intimate practice—quietly shifted into a social activity of providing comfort to soldiers and the wounded.

This so-called “home front” movement was a singular historical phenomenon in which citizens set their hands in motion together. The ingenuity of forms it produced, the infrastructures established, the organization of labor, and the shared norms that emerged can all be regarded as invaluable traces of practice, rarely found even today.

We archive these old knitting patterns not merely as historical documents to be analyzed, but as prompts to reimagine the relationship between production and consumption in the present, and to explore new ways of putting them into use.

 

 

A Project by TALK NONSENSE