Watch: The Heavy Metal Knitting World Championship Sure Was Something Else!

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Unsplash/Yvette de Wit
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Yes, you absolutely read that title correctly – Heavy Metal Knitting World Championship. The event took place this past July 8th in Joensuu, Finland, and originally began in 2019 (with the concept originating back in 2018). Essentially, the Heavy Metal Knitting World Championship involves an array of performance art, incorporating music, some elements of dance, and yes, knitting.

We have included a video below of this year’s event, which features a plethora of extravagant and fascinating performances. There are artists who will alternate between playing bass and knitting, those who dance around with yarn and knit while a band furiously plays death metal, and much more.

What do you make of these performances? Per the Heavy Metal Knitting World Championship’s website:

“Heavy Metal Knitting – the odd ball of all sports, crafts and hobbies was coined during the darkest and coldest hours of the Finnish winter in Joensuu, Finland. The year was 2018 and the term was said aloud by a journalist in a radio interview covering local handcrafts professionals. Knitters were knitting for the whole duration of the interview (of course), which eventually led to the magical question that apparently no one had asked before:

“’Is it possible for a knitter to knit eyes closed, hands behind neck like Yngwie Malmsteen does play his guitar?’”

“’Well of course it is!’, was the reply. And there it was. The idea of a knitter as a lead performer in a band playing heavy metal music. Let’s make it a competition! The more the idea was given thought and said out loud, the more it started to feel goofy enough to be implemented. The first idea was to have a national championships event held in Finland, the promised land of heavy metal music, where the handcrafts are also a huge thing.

There are over 50 heavy metal bands per 100 000 Finnish citizens and hundreds of thousands of knitting hobbyists (we’re missing precise figures of the amount, please tell us if you know more!), so we thought that there must be Finnish individuals who love both knitting and heavy metal. But could it be that there are metalhead knitters outside of Finland too?”