Stitch In Time - A Knitting Cabaret

A scintillating evening of the lost knitting songs of WWI and WWII from Canada, Britain, America and France. Feel free to bring your knitting (or crochet), and stitch along to these funny, poignant, toe-tapping, needle-clicking tunes.

During the two World Wars, millions of women knit for the soldiers. Popular music often reflected the trends of the time, and mere days after the first bullet was fired, dozens of knitting-themed songs started to appear. These songs ranged from ballads (heartfelt and sentimental), to propaganda songs (usually marches, to encourage the sentiment that knitting was a home front type of soldiering), to novelty tunes (a humorous, tongue-in-cheek look at the wartime knitting craze).

After the wars these songs were essentially lost, and this concert is the first time that many of them have been performed in 100 years. Some of the songs were very close to disappearing forever, and with Stitch in Time, this music — a clever, sweet and entertaining footnote in history — has been preserved, and given a chance to live again.

Stitch in Time features over a dozen historic songs sung by Melanie Gall, including: More Power to Your Knitting, Nell!, The Knitting Itch, and Knocking at the Knitting Club.