CONCEPTION BAY SOUTH, N.L. -- At 81 years old, Barbara Harpur may just be busier than ever. In the last two months — all while water damage was being remediated in her basement in Conception Bay South — Harpur made three new variations to one of her classic sweater designs and prepped them for publishing at a local print shop. The timing couldn’t be better. Her new pattern book, More NL Guernsey Patterns, will release just as millions of people are seeing her design on their televisions and computers, as worn by Newfoundland actor Andy Jones on the Netflix show Below. “I knew the show was going and everything, and I was trying to get it all together, but the timing is perfect,” Harpur said. Her original Newfoundland Guernsey pattern is more than 25 years old, but its screen time in the streaming show has given it a new life. Newfoundland and Labrador knitting shop Cast On, Cast Off has been selling kits to make the pattern since Below was released, and is struggling to keep that product in stock. It’s a bit of a full circle moment; Harpur had other designs featured in The Shipping News, a film released in 2001. She recalled she hurried to make a few variations of her Newfoundland Guernsey pattern to give the production staff of Below options, but actor Andy Jones “wanted that pitcher plant colour. “That was his sweater, that was it.” He was a cardigan on screen, and it’s well received, Harpur said. “People want it because cardigans are very suitable for both men and women — especially older women, when they’re menopausal. Everybody loves a cardigan because it’s easy to take off.” Below, a Netflix mini-series starring Josh Hartnett, broke the streamer’s records when it debuted in October. Netflix says it got more than 17 million views in its first week on the service. Sweaters may have well stole the show. Hobbyist knitter Abi LeDrew also saw some of her work featured in the production. “It was perfect for the scene that it was in because it looked worn and rugged and, like, not perfect,” LeDrew said. “That is what I really love about my knitting.” LeDrew said a chance encounter brought her knitting in front of the world —she struck up a conversation with one of the show’s costume producers at a local bar, showed her a few photos from her cellphone, and the producer offered to buy what she had made. In fact, the producer bought two: one for herself, and one for the show. “It was so cool to see all the knitwear, and how it was knit by other local designers and knitters here in Newfoundland,” she said. “It felt really cool to be in the collective.” Harpur became a teacher after Newfoundland and Labrador’s cod moratorium, which threw tens of thousands out of work, trying to pass machine knitting skills to women who were displaced from jobs in the fish plants across the province. She’s keeping a lot of that spirit with her with this new project. “Blackwood Printing up the shore, a kilometre away. I said, ‘Barry, could you do me a pattern? I want it done cheap so that people, Newfoundlanders can buy it. There’s no fuss.’” She’s published on Ravelry — a popular online knitting marketplace — before, but went the print route with her latest designs, hoping to keep it as accessible as possible. “Believe it or not, OK, I’m 81. There’s a lot of people my age who cannot print off a pattern in Ravelry, they’re not tech savvy,” she said. “I think it’s important to pass on what you know and learn to other people.”
