DAPHNE, Ala.—Nancy Anderson is doing her part to help American soldiers stationed in Iraq feel a little closer to home.

Through Soldier’s Angels—a support organization for U.S. service personnel—Anderson has committed to knitting 70 pairs of slippers for servicewomen.

Anderson said she’s always made Christmas cards for soldiers overseas but, in November, she found a Web-based knitting forum, where she connected with an Army chaplain on a message board.

She found out that the chaplain’s assistant in Afghanistan—who provides spiritual counseling to soldiers—often takes a group of servicewomen to a spa retreat.

The spa treatment includes facials, manicures with hot paraffin wax dip and pedicures.

Anderson, recalling when she asked the chaplain if she could contribute in some way, said the chaplain requested   70 pairs of slippers so the women could have comfortable footing after a pedicure.

“And they had to be mint green,” Anderson said. “Apparently, there is a color scheme that the Army spa uses.”

The slippers—which take an hour and a half to knit one pair—are made of acrylic yarn, the easiest to wash and dry, she said.

Anderson chose a pattern that she found online. She then used a half-double crochet stitch—working back and forth, in rows.

Anderson said she’s always been crafty.

“I’ve always done things with my hands,” she said, seated at a desk in the city’s community development office, where she works as a geographic information systems manager for the planning department.

Anderson has 21 more slippers to knit before she finishes her commitment.

“They’ve got to be made by sometime in February,” she said. “I put myself on a schedule of seven per week.”

“I got involved because of my children,” said Anderson, the mother of a veteran, who has a child in active duty.

Anderson’s son Pelham, 24, served in the Navy as a cryptographer and her daughter, Maggie, 22—also in the Navy—is an air traffic controller in Hawaii.

“Both of mine went in right out of high school,” she said. “That wasn’t the plan but it worked out.”

And that’s the reason why Anderson cares so much about other soldiers’ comfort.

“It means a lot to me because if my children were over there, I’d want them to have something like this,” she said.

For more information about Soldier’s Angels, visit www.soldiersangels.org.