Sherlockian Stitches

Come, Watson, come!’ he cried. ‘The game is afoot.

Not a word! Into your clothes and come!

Like many a Sherlockian*, tonight I will be watching the latest installment, the first episode of the third season, of the BBC Sherlock series starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. This is one of my personal favorites, and I could go on and on about how much love I have for this modernization of the Sherlock Holmes stories, but since this is a knitting and stitching blog, I thought I’d celebrate with some links to Sherlockian sites for the knitter, crafter and stitcher.

• The BBC Sherlock series tumblr devoted to SherlockCrafts.

• Professor Fonz is not a woman at all. She is a spider. A spider at the centre of a web. A knitlock web with a thousand threads, and she knows precisely how each and every single one of them dances. And she’s knitted an amazingly detailed, colorful, unique, custom Sherlock infinity scarf based on the My Favorite Things infinity scarf pattern by Jill McGee (here’s the Ravelry link). And here’s a cowl version called “The Only One in the World.”
  

• Klat/Talk has gathered together several links to knitted interpretations of popular Sherlock set-pieces, including the famous hideous/fantastic wallpaper, Watson’s cream-colored cable sweater, the orange Shock Blanket, and the iconic/ironic deerstalker hat.

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  To the right, you can see the famous hideous/fantastic wallpaper as mittens (designed by ampersand designs, who does fabulous, fan-inspired knitting designs not just for Sherlock fans, but for Anglophiles and proud nerds of all descriptions). There’s a slightly different, updated version of these mittens here. But there’s a special place in my heart for these “Johnlock Mittens” by Therese Sharp, which add the faces of Holmes and Watson on the two mittens.

• And, of course, Knitty has a great hat pattern by Sami Brooker, complete with graffiti happy face. Read her mother’s proud blog entry here.

• And I haven’t forgotten sewing. The apron and infinity scarf are by Nerd Alert Creations.

• I haven’t forgotten embroidery.

• Or cross stitch. This kit by Etsy’s JumblePie is cray cray adorbs, as the kids say, and it’s quite a deal, if you ask me. And the hideous/fantastic wallpaper pattern makes a wonderful bookmark. As does this design.

Sadly, the cross stitch world’s response to this current cultural trend is lagging far behind that of the knitting world, which, let’s face it, loves Sherlock (and Benedict Cumberbatch) and Dr. Who almost as much as it does kittens. Or is that just the internet in general? It’s time for cross stitch and the other needlearts to get their geek on and leap into the twenty-first century. If only someone, somewhere would start charting designs for this untapped audience…. But where would that designer be?

*No really, I wrote a dissertation and published an article and everything. Ah, my misspent youth…