Dead Boy Detectives and Sweater Weather
So this is some exciting news! This is a bit of a long story, but it ends with me screeching from the rooftops that I knit a sweater that has ended up on TV!
As you all know, Kyle Cassidy and I worked on the book Lopapeysa. While we were there Kyle Knit his own Lopi sweater for the first time as we traveled around the ring road. We discussed seeing stones at a church and how the shapes could be incorporated into a lopi yoke. Kyle said he wanted something with swords in it!
After knitting (and gifting) his first sweater, he set about making another one. He used my pattern (recipe) for the adventure sweater, and the yoke graph as a template to make an insanely cool design utilizing his sword idea. Then he gifted it to none other than Neil Gaiman.
Neil Gaiman wearing the sweater knit by Kyle Cassidy
Shortly after Neil posted a picture of himself wearing the sweater, the crew from HBO reached out to me asking if I could make another one for an actor to wear. They offered fair compensation but there was a catch. The sweater had to be in Canada in just a few days. Meaning with shipping and blocking time, I would have to knit it in less than THREE DAYS.
“No problem!” I said. In my mind I was of course thinking, small problem, but heck, most actors are on the smallish side, this should be easy.
“Great! They replied! Here are the actors measurements!
Okay, bigger problem. This actor is apparently fit. And muscular. This sweater needed to be a size Large, not small. But I dove in, didn’t sleep, cried a couple times and got it done!
I sent it off, they said thank you and then… silence. Was it used? Who wore it? Will I see it on screen. I had no way of knowing. I heard the show got sold to Netflix, then came the release date. Then finally, today I saw the show. And guess what? THEY USED THE SWEATER!
I’m so happy and excited! Kyle wrote up a lovely description of how it came to be, and we have released the sweater pattern for absolutely zero dollars, though we would love it if you could tag us when posting your finished creation.
If you’d like to learn more about knitting Lopapeysa sweaters, check out our book Lopapesysa!
