This is part of “Our Stories,” an ongoing series of articles about extraordinary members of the Wisconsin Jewish community.
During the many years that Evie Rosen owned the Knitting Nook in Wausau, her customers would always ask her what they should do with their leftover yarn.
But it wasn’t until about 12 years ago, when she noticed lots of media coverage about the homeless, that Rosen decided to encourage her customers to put that extra yarn to good use.
She began by asking them to knit or crochet seven-by-nine inch squares, which were then sewn together by volunteers and distributed to homeless shelters.
The project — now known as Warm Up America! — immediately took off in Wausau, and spread throughout Wisconsin after Rosen was featured in the one of Milwaukee’s daily newspapers.
“Everyone wants to help [those in need], and this is such an easy thing,” Rosen, 80, told the Chronicle from her home in Wausau.
“Evie felt that if she could do it, so could other retailers,” said Mary Colucci, a longtime friend of Rosen’s and executive director of the Warm Up America! Foundation. “Through her connections in the yarn industry, it caught on at different shops across the country.”
Soon, said Colucci, Rosen’s “basement was inundated” with yarn squares and afghans. The women turned to the Craft Yarn Council of America — a non-profit association of yarn companies and publishers — for assistance with storing, sewing and collecting the blankets. “They had a lot more room than I did!” said Rosen.
In 2002, Warm Up America! became a tax-exempt charitable foundation and, to date, it has distributed over 250,000 blankets to hospitals, shelters, and disaster areas.
The project “has taken on a life of its own,” said Rosen. “People all over the country are knitting and crocheting seven-by-nine inch squares. You can knit in the doctor’s office or during your child’s soccer game. People still drop off bags of squares to me all the time.”
“One of the most gratifying things has been the number of teachers who have introduced the program in their classes,” added Colucci.
“The kids learn a skill to enjoy for a lifetime, but they also have to work as a group to accomplish a project. People think only adults are doing this, but it involves all ages.”
To Rosen, perhaps the most important aspect of Warm Up America! is its ability “to make you feel like you’re really helping someone.”
“It’s almost a direct line,” she continued. “When you give money to charity you rarely see direct results, but with this you have a tangible product. It’s a gift of love, really.”
Rosen’s cousin taught her to knit and purl in junior high school. Even after she married her husband, Irving, and had two children, Michael and Robbin, knitting was still “high on the hobby list.”
“I was doing a lot of knitting and helping lots of other people with their knitting, so I thought we [my friend and I] should open a knit shop.” And in 1966, that’s exactly what they did.
“We closed every day over the lunch hour so we could go home and give our kids lunch,” she recalled.
Robbin Stott, Rosen’s daughter, says that her mother’s affinity for knitting definitely rubbed off on her.
“Mom taught me to knit when I was quite young, and I wasn’t allowed to wear anything that wasn’t hand-knit,” said Stott, who now lives with her husband in Midland, Mich. “She even knit my wedding gown.
It’s a beautiful dress — very unique and gorgeous.
Even now, she amazes me. She can fix knitting problems over the phone — she can talk me through it.”
Indeed, said Colucci, Rosen is well known in the yarn industry for the knitting curriculum she developed for the Craft Yarn Council, for the classes she teaches at various consumer knitting shows, and for the many instructional books she has written.
“What people love so much about her classes is that she’s a very funny woman,” added Colucci. “She packs her classes full of information and makes them fun. That’s always been one of her secret weapons.”
A ‘vibrant’ community
Rosen herself is decidedly modest about her many accomplishments. “She does good things quietly,” said Colucci, and that includes her involvement in the Wausau Jewish community.
For many years Rosen was on the board of her synagogue, Mount Sinai Congregation, and she is currently the president of the Cemetery Association. According to her daughter, she regularly has lunch with her rabbi and attends Torah study on Saturday mornings.
“It’s very hard for people in a large city like Milwaukee to conceive of a vibrant Jewish community in a small city like Wausau,” Rosen said. The community may be small, she said, but it’s very close-knit. And that suits her just fine.
“I like the fact that it’s easy to have personal relationships with many people,” said Rosen, whose husband died many years ago. “You feel very much a part of the community.”
Growing up, that wasn’t always the case.
“I had very few Jewish friends. Almost everyone else was Christian, but we discussed religion very openly,” she recalled. “I never had problems. I went to Sunday school and services on the High Holidays. I knew I was Jewish, and that’s the way it was.”
For more information about Warm Up America! visit www.warmupamerica.org. Knitted squares may be sent to Warm Up America! Craft Yarn Council of America, 2500 Lowell Rd, Gastonia, NC 28054.
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