How To Make The Viral Project Hail Mary Fox Sweater (From The First Fan Who Did It)
You can’t buy this sweater outright (yet). But you can make it — even if you’ve never knit anything before.
Cosplay has always been an art, even as far back as costume parties of yore. But there’s a distinct difference between shopping or sewing to complete a cosplay outfit and knitting or crocheting something screen-accurate. From Althea Crome’s microknit sweaters for Coraline to the Knives Out sweater that became known as the “Handsome Chris,” those in the fiber arts community pour months into reverse engineering and replicating the already incredibly labor-intensive hand-knits they see on screen.
For one dedicated knitter, when it came to the newly released sci-fi blockbuster Project Hail Mary and a certain fox sweater, that process began even before the movie came out.
“I love knitting things from film and television. My big magnum opus is I did the Oaken sweater from Frozen, which I designed the chart for,” reproduction knitter Harmony Leiker tells Inverse. “I also happened to really love Project Hail Mary. I read the book about a year ago, and I absolutely loved it. So when the first trailer dropped in October [2025], I immediately clocked this sweater because I had seen the pattern previously.”
“Immediately I went, ‘I’m going to take a gamble that this is going to be a big deal, and I’m going to take a gamble that this movie’s going to be good, and I’m going to take a gamble that it’s seen in a fair amount of the movie. I’m just going to gamble on all of it, and I’m just going to go ahead and make the sweater."
A few months later, she had a fully finished garment to wear to her local movie theater.
Unfortunately for the not-knitting Project Hail Mary fans, this sweater is currently unavailable for purchase as a completed garment. However, if you’re willing to learn a few new skills, this sweater could be yours. Here’s everything you need to know to make the sweater, including tips from the first fan who made it.
How To Make The Project Hail Mary Sweater
When Leiker noticed the pattern, she knew exactly where to look for a starting point: Mary Maxim’s 1950s pattern for a “Wolf Cardigan,” but with the colors switched so the wolves on the front and back look more like foxes. That pattern is a simple $8 purchase from the Mary Maxim website, but making this vintage pattern identical to the one on screen is a little more complicated.
If you compare the original pattern and the movie sweater side by side, there’s a big difference: The animals on Ryland Grace’s sweater look a lot less intimidating, with bigger eyes and less of a tongue lashing out. Leiker noticed this, but didn’t know exactly how the patterns differed — she made the sweater according to the original pattern, hoping to adapt it later. It wasn’t until Project Hail Mary costume designer Glyn Dillon made an Instagram post about the sweater itself that Leiker was able to adjust the colorwork to match.
Harmony Leiker’s finished Project Hail Mary fox cardigan.
According to Dillon, the design was changed at the suggestion of Ryan Gosling himself. “Ryan came in with an unexpected suggestion … He’d been staying in London and had experienced sightings of our urban fox population … A lot of Londoners consider them pests, but I’m more inclined to agree with Ryan; they’re special, and it’s always a bit magical when you spot one crossing your path at night,” he wrote. “So he asked if we could change the wolves to foxes. We were extremely tight on time, but this was also a chance to change the faces and the bloodred footprints.”
Mary Maxim now has a “Project Hail Mary version” of the Wolf Cardigan, but it’s only available as a $90 kit, including the supplies needed, and it’s temporarily sold out. But rest assured, there are other options if you’re willing to get a little crafty.
How To Make The Project Hail Mary Sweater Without The Kit
As Leiker has proved, you can make this sweater by using the original vintage pattern and a little bit of adjusting. “It’s not a difficult sweater in the construction overall,” she says. “It is pieced. So you do have to sew all of the pieces together at the end, so it’s not knit in one.” Many modern, trendy hand-knit sweaters are knit from the top down, which makes construction a lot easier, but this is knit in panels and then stitched together, which is definitely more labor-intensive. It also includes a zipper, which is a daunting prospect for even the most experienced knitters.
The pattern included in the kit is a lot more involved, but if you’re just going with the original pattern, there’s another issue: working with vintage instructions.
“Vintage patterns are very sparse,” Leiker says. “It’s literally just, like, ‘Sew it together.’ There’s just a picture of the different pieces of the sweater.” She also notes the kit may be more convenient just for having the perfect yarn. If you’re choosing your own, she suggests something with “a bit of tooth.”
But don’t be scared away from trying. “I’m a person who takes on projects that are beyond my capabilities, and I jump right in and just figure them out,” Leiker says. “I started with a hat and then immediately did a sweater.” (Sidenote: This writer is the same way; I started knitting with a 30-ft.-long Doctor Who scarf about 15 years ago and have been knitting mostly vintage projects ever since.) “It’s not the easiest thing in the world. So I’d say this is a very dedicated beginner project. A very ambitious beginner project.”
The most difficult part of the project is the colorwork, which combines stranded colorwork, where yarn is held behind stitches, and intarsia, where yarn is carried to where it’s needed next. But eagle-eyed fans have already posted more screen-accurate colorwork charts on Ravelry, so you at least won’t need to squint at screenshots.
We’re in an age where knitting is actually more accessible than ever. Whereas before, you’d have to consult a book or a teacher to learn the different stitches and techniques, now essentially any question can be answered through a YouTube tutorial or a Reddit post. The knitting community is also one of the most open crafting communities ever — if this is your entry point to this craft, you may just have stumbled into a brand-new hobby.
