Have you ever heard of “woolies”?

Woolies are embroidered images of ships worked by sailors who were usually on those ships. Although they’re mostly a British thing, it’s not unusual to find woolies worked by sailors from other countries as well.

My interest in woolies was piqued some 15-ish years ago, when visiting DC. There, I saw the sailor’s embroidery that’s on exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Unlike woolies, this piece is worked on linen with silk, and it features, along with a ship, many land-based scenes memorializing the Civil War. On the bottom of it, the sailor embroidered “Worked at Sea.”

Contemplating that piece, I thought, “Embroidery by sailors made sense – it would be a great way to occupy time. And surely this isn’t the only piece of embroidery ever done by a sailor!”

And that thought led me to…

…woolies. (Don’t you just love the name?!)