A very knitty fall festival season

I’m on the other side of the New York Film Festival, and wow, it’s been a very good festival season for movie sweaters.

The obvious candidate is The Banshees of Inisherin, the defacto "Sweater Movie” of 2022 thanks to the time period and location: 1923 Ireland, around the time the Aran sweater was thriving along with other significant events in Irish history. Yes, I literally took notes about every knit in the film, which filled up one side of an Alamo Drafthouse order card; I didn’t have a notebook with me, so I made do with what I had. Even if it didn’t have several Good Sweaters, I think it’d still be one of my favorite movies of 2022.

But it’s far from the only movie with a notable sweater in it, although chances are you might not think of those other movies as Sweater Movies. (I recently posted a Twitter poll where I asked folks how many sweaters it took for a movie to be a Sweater Movie, and the vast majority chose either one sweater or 2-5.)

Keep an eye out on Decision to Leave (now out in theaters) and Bones and All (limited release on Nov. 18; expands on Nov. 23). Those sweaters aren’t in their respective movies for long, so you might miss them on a first watch. But I assure you, they’re both good sweaters.

The Knit: Ixchel Cowl

Pattern: Ravelry / Direct

Yarn: Magpie Fibers Swanky Sock in Empty Night and Moonbeam; La Bien Aimée Kumo in Winterfell

Maybe it’s me, but I feel like once knitters get the hang of what they’re doing and start venturing out to try new techniques, they quickly discover what works for them and what doesn’t. For example, I find cabling soothing, but I hate colorwork. It’s not that I find it difficult, per se. I have tight tension when I knit, so my attempt to knit a colorwork hat that most people tend to gravitate toward as an introduction to the technique ended somewhat disastrously because the hat wouldn’t fit over my head.

So several years later, I’m returning to cursed colorwork because Brooklyn General, one of my local yarn shops (LYS), sold a kit for a cowl version of its famous Ixchel pattern. (The full sweater version, which I will probably never attempt, is gorgeous.) If you’re ever in Brooklyn, take a look around; it’s one of my favorites.

Here’s what Brooklyn General’s website says about the pattern design:

I don’t know if I “feel the power of the moon” yet, but I admit that I’m only halfway done with the written pattern (and none of the interior lining). But for now, my worries are still the same: After all this, will I be able to put this thing over my head and let it rest around my neck?

The Flick¹ : The 2022 World Series

Streaming: Fox

I’ve long accepted that my last name will always be associated with a certain era of Eagles history, but on the sports front, baseball has always been my first love.

One of my earliest fragmented memories is of going to a Phillies game at Veterans Stadium; it was either ‘93 or ‘94, and all I remember is the Phanatic’s chaotic Muppet energy and that they lost the game, giving me the impression that the Phillies were bad. (Depending on which year, very different realities.) One of my dad’s old bosses had season tickets to the Trenton Thunder—a minor league team with an adorable bat dog—that he’d often give to his employees when he couldn’t go, and whenever it was my dad’s turn to use the tickets, he’d switch off between taking my sister and me. He co-coached my T-ball team (I went in that direction instead of soccer like many of my female classmates); we were terrible, even for 7-year-olds.

I was away at college when the Phillies won the World Series in 2008, but he obsessively watched every game he could in the years that followed. Because he wasn’t much for the internet, where all of this info was readily available, he kept a notebook tallying every Phillies win and loss. (Why yes, he was the bigger nerd among my parents.) And once he really got into the Phillies, getting him tickets to upcoming games became the world’s easiest Father’s Day present because he was otherwise impossibly annoying to shop for. (Often, but not always, the games we chose for the three of us fell on a Dollar Dog Night, the objectively best night to go.)

I don’t know whether his investment in the Phillies would’ve lasted through their 11-year postseason drought, years of terrible seasons in-between 2011 and now, or even the disastrous start to the most recent season before they fired Joe Girardi. By the time my dad died, the Phillies hadn’t been good in years and he had already mostly given up on the Eagles (the other team and sport he cared about) because their seasons almost always ended in disappointment. He never got to see the Eagles finally win the whole shebang, something that’s always bummed me out.

It doesn’t take much to imagine how he might’ve gotten invested in the improbable run through the postseason—one partially possible because of recent rule changes that left both sports pundits and fans whose teams won 100+ games but were knocked out of playoff contention grumbling because how dare the Padres and Phillies upset teams with much better records, aka the “by rights, [they] shouldn’t even be here” mentality—or how my mom would’ve lightly chided him for it (mostly in that she turned that toward me during a recent visit back home). Why yes, I’ve lost my mind on multiple occasions, from the rallies and the anxiety-inducing innings to Bryce Harper’s series-winning two-run homer I heard on the radio on my way home before I was able to run into my apartment to watch the replays on TV. It’s the kind of heart-pounding chaos that can make you feel alive when it goes your way. It makes me want to vomit, but that high that comes with a near-impossible, come-from-behind victory is euphoric.

Sure, it might all go up in flames in just a few days. But with real-life drama like this, how the hell could you ever expect me to catch up on the many shows (The Rings of Power, Andor, Interview With the Vampire) still in my backlog right now?

What I’m Reading

• The Sopranos Sessions by Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall: A must-read for Sopranos fans watching the show for the first time or for the dozenth.

• Scythe by Neal Schusterman: A recent book club entry, I was sucked into the world-building of it all. Bought the trilogy on a whim when they went on sale for Kindle, and I think I’m going to continue.

Shameless Plugs

• NYFF might be over, but you can (and I’m writing more as release dates come to pass). You can see many of those movies right now: TÁR and Till are in theaters, Descendant is on Netflix, and you’ll be able to see She Said in a few weeks.

• In the midst of all that and my weekly House of the Dragon coverage, I wrote about the folks behind one of the internet’s most influential Song of Ice and Fire websites and years of problematic behavior online.

• I also wrote about my five favorite movies from the festival, and while I made that list before the festival ended (mostly because of the newsletter schedule), my top five didn’t change.

Knitwear of the Week

Knit: Two white Aran sweaters (which may or may not have similar designs)

Worn By: Lovable dirtbag teen Erin Quinn (Saoirse-Monica Jackson) and Derry’s deadpan queen Sister Michael (Siobhán McSweeney), across three episodes of Derry Girls season 3.

Costume Designer: Cathy Prior

Are you watching Derry Girls? If not, you should. I’ve described it to friends as “It’s Always Sunny, but if that show was about dirtbag teen girls in Northern Ireland during the Troubles,” and it’s such an effective showcase of how, even when everything seems uncertain, people still find ways to focus on the smaller, but equally as important to them, parts of life.

Derry Girls ended in the U.K. earlier this year, but it took until October for the third and final season to arrive on Netflix (where it streams for us Americans). I wrote a bit about how much I loved season 3 for the Dot’s streaming newsletter, and I thought it was pretty much perfect. (It also has the coolest Michelle on television, but that isn’t why I love it.) But this is more about the Aran sweaters. First, there is Sister Michael’s honeycomb Aran knit that she wears for much of the final two episodes of the series. I knew about that one well in advance thanks to my friend Clint doing the responsible thing and bringing it to my attention. It’s gone viral in recent days as more people catch up on the new season.

But nobody told me about Erin in an Aran. So when it popped up in the fourth episode, it was a mix of excitement and disappointment because it wasn’t getting much attention. (And an honorable mention to the return of James’ Tom Baker Doctor Who scarf, which first showed up in season 2.)

Derry Girls rules. Watch it ASAP.

Want to nominate your own Knitwear of the Week?

I’m now offering you a chance to nominate your favorite piece of cinematic knitwear. I’ve got more information about what I’m looking for here. So, if you’ve got one, send an email over to [email protected] with your pick!

1  Yes, baseball is not a traditional pick, but my usage of the word “flick” is a matter of branding at this point.