While some secret agents hid messages in their knitting accoutrements, others went full-on Madame Defarge and worked codes into their knitting. Dubbed “the Red Spy Queen,” she said a better name would be “the Communist June Cleaver.”īentley’s clandestine activities ended in 1944 when she outed herself to the FBI, perhaps fearing that she would be forced to defect to the USSR. According to one biographer, Bentley would travel to Washington, D.C., to pick up stolen materials, conceal them in her knitting basket, then ride the train back to New York. Mingled among the skeins of yarn, needles, and patterns were microfilms and classified documents. Bentley passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II by transporting it in her knitting bag. Infamous American Elizabeth Bentley also used society’s propensity to ignore knitters to her advantage. If a ball of yarn stuffed with intelligence happened to fall from the rock and roll into the hands of Washington’s troops below, well, she couldn’t help that, could she? When she overheard a juicy bit, Old Mom Rinker went to a particular rock by the Wissahickon Creek and knit socks. Later, she jotted the information on slips of paper, wrapped the paper around a small rock, then wound yarn around it. Rinker eavesdropped on her customers, listening for information about troop movements and strategy that would help the Continental Army. A hearty ale often loosens even stiff upper lips. Old Mom Rinker, local legend goes, served British officers and soldiers in her Philadelphia tavern. Think all knitters are clueless crones fluttering over their baby blankets? Be careful-you might overlook a badass like Molly Rinker, tavern keeper, sock knitter and revolutionary spy. Which is why I absolutely adore learning about knitting spies. It manages to insult generations of excellent stitchers while fostering the stereotype that all knitters (and grandmothers) are dowdy, behind the times and have wool for brains. I hate the phrase “Not your grandmother’s knitting” with the fire of a thousand suns.

Secret neighbor brave