I just found out something amazing.

You know Doctor Who, right?  (One of the longest-running scripted television show in history.  It’s a classic story of a time traveling alien and his friends run around the universe causing trouble and trying to save the day.)

Anyway, back in the 70s, the Doctor looked like this:

You see that scarf?  That epic 20-foot-long monstrosity?

I always assumed that it was a deliberately-planned costuming decision.  You know, something to make the Doctor look fun and quirky.  But I just learned the real reason, and it’s so much better than I could have imagined.

The costume designer for the show, James Acheson (who was not a knitter),  picked out the yarn colors for the scarf, but didn’t know how much yarn went into a normal-sized scarf.  He gave the yarn to a local knitter (with the extremely British name of Begonia Pope) with vague instructions to make a striped scarf.

Apparently, she took him at his word and used all the yarn.  And, instead of stopping at a regular 5- or 6-foot-long scarf, she kept going, until it ended up more than twenty-feet long.

After some understandable surprise, the cast and crew decided they liked the scarf, and the rest is history.

Want to make your own Doctor Who Scarf?  Load up on lots (and lots and lots) of wool and get to work!

Doctor Who Scarf – Season 12 by Chris Brimelow

Do you have any favorite pop-culture knitting?