Lifelong Blue Jays fan stitched together her love of knitting and baseball for 50th season | Canada Voices

For Karla Courtney, there was only one way to commemorate the Toronto Blue Jays’ milestone 50th season: knit a scarf that recorded every win and loss over the course of 162 baseball games.

Back in March, the lifelong Jays fan started to knit a stripe after every game with the aim of visually representing the ups and downs of the 2026 regular season, which came to an end on Sunday.

She added blue stripes for every win and white stripes for every loss. The final result was a 157-centimetre scarf that records the season’s highlights, such as the team’s first four-game winning streak and Daulton Varsho’s dramatic walk-off grand slam in May.

Ms. Courtney, 45, who now lives in Brighton, U.K., has always found a way to honour her love for the team through stitch. She documents each of her knitting projects on social media – and they’ve since gotten the attention of many a Jays fan, including Prime Minister Mark Carney. Last year, when the Jays entered the post-season she knitted a playoff sweater, which is now part of the sports memorabilia collection at the Canadian Museum of History.

This season’s knitting project took her to 11 games in person, and she also spent late nights or early mornings knitting from her U.K. home or her family’s home in Newfoundland.

She talked to The Globe and Mail about her inspiration for the knitting project, the challenges, her love of the Blue Jays, and how the scarf became a source of relaxation during a year of many wins and losses.

What inspired you to knit through an entire Blue Jays season?

Courtney: I am a huge Blue Jays fan. When I was little, I used to keep a copy of the Jays’ schedule in the ’90s, ’80s, and write down every score on the schedule so I’d have it inside my cupboard. I’ve always watched the Blue Jays and knit, but I thought I wanted to do something for the 50th season that was simple enough that other people could join in and also help me keep a record.

I can look back on the scarf and remember things pretty easily, especially when there’s big trails of losses and wins. Like, ‘Oh, that’s when we finally beat L.A.,’ or ‘That’s when [Addison] Barger went out.’

Why did knitting feel like the right medium to track wins and losses?

Courtney: I’ve been knitting since I was around eight. My grandmother was actually a sustenance knitter in Newfoundland. I say sustenance knitter because she grew up on an island off the coast of Newfoundland, she reared her own sheep and she knit everything – or most of the stuff the family would wear. She’d also sell her fleece to get spun into yarn. I spent a lot of summers with her, so I would knit with her when we’d watch baseball.

As for the record-keeping story, there’s a lot of AI or graphic things out there, and I think this is just such a nice, tactile and different way, and it brings me into the game too. It’s a real process because when you knit or when you do something with your hands, I think it brings out more memories – so it’s really fun to be able to just take that little ritual of knitting after every game and kind of committing it to memory. And then you end up with this very beautiful and tactile visualization of sports that doesn’t always happen nowadays.

I did it as well for the World Cup. I knit every single goal and ended up with a crazy long scarf. So I like doing projects like that to coincide with sports events.

Tell us about your knitting process, and what was it like to knit inside the Rogers Centre in Toronto.

Courtney: I live in Brighton, U.K. But I try to come back to Canada as much as possible for my family – and I prefer to come back in the summer because it’s baseball. So whenever I’m back, I just go to as many games as I can. So I did attend the 50th season home-opener. I attended the closer. They were both blue stripes from wins, so those are still nice memories even though this season hasn’t been the best, and then, I knit in between too. Whenever I was back, I’d bring it to the ballpark and knit it with me as well.

I never knit the scarf during the game because I can only do it based on the outcome. But I do have other projects. It’s so fun knitting during the game because the horn is going, and I pull my needles out and I say “Win!” I was also at game six and seven of the ALCS (American League Championship Series) and I was at game seven of the World Series – but we don’t talk about that.

It’s just a nice way of relaxing. Some people will clench, some people will drink. We all have our rituals, and I’m knitting.

Was it hard to stick to knitting all 162 games?

No, I had a little project bag that another knitter actually made me as a present – and I brought the bag everywhere with me. The only time I would knit the scarf the next day was, you know I live in England, so if it was a late game, I’d obviously just knit it the next morning. But I always knit it the day of the game or the day after, depending on what time zone it’s falling in for me.

You also knit another piece of iconic Jays memorabilia last year. Can you tell us about that?

Courtney: I knit that Jays sweater during the World Series, and it did go quite viral. It was really wild. That whole year of 2025 – my family can attest to this – I had just said, “No, I am sick of this. The Blue Jays are going to the World Series this year.” I changed my Wi-Fi network to “BlueJaysAllTheWay” at the start of the season. So I was really committed to the fact. When they started the ALDS (American League Division Series), the division series versus the Yankees, I cast on the sweater after game two. I was watching all the games at home in England and I thought, ‘I want a way to help me stay awake.’

You even got to meet Prime Minister Mark Carney because of it.

Courtney: The sweater did get a bit of attention, and then I said I want to re-knit one, but I want to do it with Canadian yarn. I wanted to do it with the mill where my grandma used to send her sheep to – Briggs and Little in New Brunswick. I had a friend staying with me who said, “This is beautiful. You should meet the Prime Minister.” She messaged the Prime Minister’s photographer on Instagram and told him about me. They heard the story about it and said, “Yes, they should meet. They would love a sweater from her.”

I met Prime Minister Mark Carney in Toronto on August 5th. He was doing an event for a local MP, and they invited me to the event. He met my son and my husband, and we had our own time with him. What’s so great is just as he was walking up to me, Ernie Clement had just hit a home run in the 10th inning for the Blue Jays to take an extra innings win. So I was like, ‘Look, you’re already a lucky charm. Now you got to wear this little sweater.’

Looking back, does the scarf tell the story of your year as much as it tells the story of the Blue Jays’ season?

Courtney: It was like a weird diary. I feel quite emotional now that it’s done because looking back on it, it was a ritual that I’ve had for the past 162 games. If they won, I’d knit it straight away, so excited. Like sometimes I’d take a photo with the TV. If they lost, I waited a few hours, especially if it was a sad loss. It kind of represented my mood and day.

It was like having this diary of wool of both the baseball and maybe how I felt on the day, because I definitely can look at it and dip into certain times and remember how I felt.

Will you do it again next year?

Courtney: Yes, I wanted to do one of those 1930s-style cardigans that Babe Ruth used to wear, but Blue Jays style. I didn’t have time to do it this year, but next season, I really want to do it.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.