Hand Stitching

The thing I noticed most after creating the cigarette pack is the apparent urgency of the stitching. It looks a bit untidy and rapid and I think that represents the urgency and the need to have that object quickly was important to the soldiers. I was originally going to use a sewing machine to do the stitching on most of the objects, but because of the way the hand stitching looks and the fact that it feels more human, (going back to the anthropomorphic base that I started this whole project on) I want to hand sew the objects. 

Housewife Sewing Kit

This also links in with the soldiers during the war because they were issued a "Housewife Sewing Kit" and this was to repair clothing and equipment on the frontline, and clothing repairs were likely to be more of a women's role if they were at home. Sewing and knitting were also used as occupational therapy to soldiers who returned injured, so it would have been a newly required skill, therefore the quality may not be as good, but the inflections would tell more of a story about the person who made the piece. 

Man Knitting as Part of the War Effort