Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 1, 1991 TAG: 9102010228
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LEESBURG LENGTH: Medium
"People are desperate because they feel there's nothing they can do" while the war goes on, Joan Williams said. "Here's something they can do" for relatives and friends in the Middle East.
Making clothing for troops is something Williams, 84, is accustomed to. She helped her mother knit when she was a child during World War I in England. And in World War II she knitted socks and sweaters in Loudoun County.
Now she's making 4-inch-wide headbands for soldiers to wear over their foreheads and ears.
Williams was recruited by Judy Brinegar and Laura Edwards, owners of the Knitting Place in Leesburg. They are giving out free yarn and instructions to people who want to make the head warmers for the troops.
Loudoun Help From Home, a volunteer group, plans to ship the headbands to troops on the front line.
The widow, who moved to Leesburg 53 years ago but has kept her British accent and demeanor, always finds time to knit, along with working part time at the local hospital and at historic Oatlands Plantation.
"I can watch television and can read while doing this," she said. "All my brains are in my hands."
Williams, who is a Quaker and a pacifist, said she knitted for her family and others from her home in Longmelford, England, during bombing attacks during World War I.
"My grandfather started me knitting," she said. "He was a gorgeous knitter."
Williams came to the United States in the late 1930s "in one of those shipboard romances you're warned against." She was one of Loudoun County's unofficial coordinators for knitting sweaters and socks during World War II.
She never actually knitted sweaters during that time, but she and a partner put their best knitters to work making socks with a complicated pattern, but found out some soldiers were using them to shine their shoes.
"I just thought that was a poor do," she said.
The current headband project originally was the idea of the Rev. Gary Hensley, a chaplain stationed in the Saudi Arabia. The project has spread quickly: Organizers say nearly 3,000 head warmers have been made across the nation in the past two weeks.
The headbands, which are to be made in neutral colors such as gray and off-white, are designed to fit under helmets.
Air Force Capt. Sigmund Adams, a Pentagon spokesman, said he "can't imagine there would be a problem" with the troops wearing the head warmers to bed, but said their use might be restricted during duty.
by CNB