Each one is knitting a message or epitaph to their loved one the size of an A4 sheet of page which will form part of an enormous scarf which, it is hoped, will reach a kilometre in length.
That night and over the next several days in South Carolina, as McCain's events just got bigger and bigger, the very size of the crowd was sending a message.
He said consideration would be given to "reducing the character size on the signs and reducing bilingual message lengths but as part of this process safety implications will have to be taken into account".