By coincidence, I read of Bush’s latest plan to expand the scope of the war and the Body Count Mittens in the same night. Lisa Anne Auerbach’s introductory post is here and the pattern is here (PDF).

Most issues-conscious knitting seems to come from the Reese’s school of social movements (“Hey, you got knitting in my political statement!”). The Body Count Mittens truly utilize the process of handknitting to provide a more poignant message through the finished product. Each mitten displays the date of its commencement and the most current count of American/Coalition lives lost to the war. Thus the mittens serve as a temporal marker, solemnly commemorating the lives extinguished during the time required to knit a mitten. Brilliant and tragic.

As Ms. Auerbach notes in the pattern, you can make body count mittens by adapting any mitten pattern you’d like. I know there are a lot of people who have bookmarked the Anemoi mittens this winter. I will be visiting http://icasualties.org/oif/ before casting mine on.