Those of use who are handicrafty often have a sort of side-hobby of identifying handcrafted objects in the wild.  Sometimes that takes the form of following strangers around the grocery store to identify whether that sweater is handknit or bought.  Sometimes it means identifying knitted or crocheted items in movies and on TV.  I would estimate a good 15% of the conversations on Ravelry at any given time involve the sweater from Dunkirk or that cool scarf from the new Gilmore Girls or something along those lines.

So geeky knitters have been in for quite a treat with Marvel’s Black Panther.  I’m going to stress here that there is the one prominent knitted thing in this movie, but it is a doozy.  I’m talking, of course, about Nakia’s Scarf/Shawl thing.

This is one shot of Nakia’s Shawl, but believe me, it is all over the movie.  I missed half of the dialog because of that thing.  And I’m not the only one. It is beautiful!  Do a Google search on Nakia’s Shawl – or don’t bother, I already did one for you – and marvel at the splash this thing has made.

More to the point, it has made quite an impression on Ravelry as well. People have been really passionate about that shawl.  It has been a fascinating event to watch unfold!  To get the gist, click here for a pretty complete thread on the topic. The end result was that the guy who designed and knitted it, Jeff Gillies, released the pattern.  For free!  Just because people were begging the costume designer and then him. He originally knit it on a machine, so his pattern and notes were not geared toward hand-knitters, and were a little rough.  However, a hand knitter soon jumped in and adjusted the pattern. As of right this minute, there are 150 projects of this pattern on Ravelry, and that’s within a month of the pattern being released.

There was a little hint shortly thereafter from the costume designer that she might have been in a bit of trouble with the studio over that.  Which is not surprising.  Disney/Marvel don’t seem too interested in putting out craft patterns or kits themselves, but they sure don’t want anyone else to, either. Ever since I found out that they are somehow involved with designer Josh Bennett and his line of very, very expensive Marvel sweaters, I have been waiting for the pattern book to go on sale.  But I suspect I can just go on waiting for that to happen 🙂

Now that the pattern is out there, people are scrambling for the yarns or devising their own color schemes. Details about the yarn used for the movie version are available in the pattern, and include Noro, Madelinetosh, and Malabrigo.  Like any other project out there, many people are following to the letter, many more are doing their own thing with it. I’m thinking about making it myself, but would definitely come up with a different color scheme.  Greens and browns are my Mom’s colors, but definitely not mine.  Madelinetosh has since gotten into it a bit and put out some Black Panther-inspired yarns, just for fun 🙂 I may go with one of those, or I may come to my senses and realize I’m pretty well set for projects right now.

Are there any knitted or otherwise crafted items you’ve seen in a movie that you suddenly needed to make?