I don’t really dabble with college basketball’s March Madness—for one, having gone to a DIII university, I never really understood how into college sports people got (I still really don’t tbh)—but I’m familiar with the concept of the Cinderella Story. You know, the low-ranked, scrappy but very likable team that never expected to get in the tournament in the first place and goes further than anyone ever expected.

While Knit Madness probably leans a bit more toward upsets than your usual basketball tournament, in the two years I’ve been doing this, we’ve had two no. 15-ranked sweaters make it to Sweet Sixteen: Derry Girls last year, and Peter Hujar’s Day this year. And it wasn’t even close, unlike a couple of these matchups.

I don’t know have any major thoughts on whether it means anything, but it’s kind of exciting that even though I’ve featured sweaters that have gotten lots of press coverage, I have no idea what will win the entire thing.

Also: I’m still looking for sweater episode recs for Murder, She Wrote! I’ve got some great ones already, but I’d love to see more!

You can find a detailed rundown of Knit Madness here.

Ready for today’s matchups? Get started with Google Forms, and/or make your way through the Bluesky polls, which you can find below.

Voting will close on Sunday, March 15, two days from now.

The Sweater: A gray-ish-blue sweater with a baseball game depicted with red, blue, green, white, and brown yarn.

Who Wore It: Same Malone (Ted Danson), the owner and bartender of Cheers’ titular bar.

Replica: No

Notes: My impression is that Sam Malone wears a ton of sweaters throughout the series, but I picked this one well before learning about his past as a Red Sox relief pitcher. I wonder what he’d think of the Red Sox in the 21st century.

Previously Defeated: (16) The Idea of You

The Sweater: A green zig-zag turtleneck sweater

Who Wore It: Helen Alderson (Rachel Shenton), who might not be a veterinarian but knows her way around farm animals

Replica: No

Notes: This has absolutely nothing to do with All Creatures Great and Small, but while trying to find new clips on YouTube to screenshot—apologies, but I can’t access the episode via PBS Passport—I learned that Shenton is an Oscar winner? She and her husband Chris Overton won in 2018 for the live-action short film The Silent Child, which I didn’t see but I kinda remember bits of her acceptance speech.

Previously Defeated: (8) Hunt for the Wilderpeople

The Sweater: A red, blue, green, and yellow sweater vest with yellow bears near the top

Who Wore It: Rose Nylund (Betty White), one of the Golden Girls’ magical quartet.

Replica: No

Notes: This episode features a lesbian friend of Dorothy’s (Bea Arthur) who has a (sadly unrequited) crush on Rose, a fact that I’m sure Golden Girls fan Carol Sturka would probably know.

Previously Defeated: (15) Game of Wool: Britain’s Best Knitter

The Sweater: A white sweater with a green, yellow, blue, and pink zig-zag yoke (and each color getting its own section)

Who Wore It: Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn), a lesbian romantasy author who might be humanity’s last hope against a mysterious yet welcoming hive mind.

Replica: No

Notes: Given that Carol is coping her way through the grief of losing her wife and nearly everyone else on Earth being absorbed into the hive mind by drinking lots of booze and binging The Golden Girls on DVD, she might feel a certain way about this matchup.

Previously Defeated: (7) Cast Away

The Sweater: Two very threadbare and fraying sweaters, one in a dark gray, the other in a light gray

Who Wore It: Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), humans fighting against the machines.

Replica: Yes and Yes: The official version of Neo’s sweater was designed by Suss Cousins, who published the pattern as part of the knitting book Hollywood Knits: Thirty Original Suss Designs (which you can borrow via the Internet Archive or purchase at your used bookseller of choice).

Notes: I interviewed costume designer Janty Yates a few years back about Adam Driver’s sweater in House of Gucci and I always loved how she thought about the ubiquity of sweaters in any genre of film (even sci-fi):

Previously Defeated: (14) Song Sung Blue

The Sweater: A green, red, and yellow Fair Isle sweater

Who Wore It: Charles Heath (Tim Key), a two-time lottery winner and widower who uses his wealth for good—aka enticing the estranged Civil Wars-coded folk duo to travel to to the small Welsh island he calls home and reunite long enough to perform a private concert for him for a buttload of money.

Replica: No

Notes: There are so many good sweaters, this and the whale cardigan are only scratching the surface.

Previously Defeated: (6) The Fugitive

The Sweater: A red, blue, yellow, brown, and white sweater. The top third is crocheted, while the bottom two-thirds are knitted

Who Wore It: Paris Geller (Liza Weil), who has somehow not strangled Rory Gilmore by now

Replica: Yes

Notes: Fuck yeah crochet rep!

Previously Defeated: (13) Black Christmas (1974)

The Sweater: A bright pink mohair turtleneck sweater

Who Wore It: Belle Gibson (Kaitlyn Dever), the wellness guru who lied to the world about having cancer (and lied about a bunch of other things)

Replica: No

Notes: This is technically a recreation of a sweater that the real Gibson actually wore during an interview with 60 Minutes Australia, but since it appears in a TV show as well, I’ll allow it. (By this logic, Princess Diana’s famous Warm & Wonderful black sheep sweater that showed up in The Crown season 4 can also compete in a future Knit Madness.)

Previously Defeated: (5) SpongeBob SquarePants

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