The Craziest, Most Intense Sport You’ve Never Heard of: Competitive Knitting

It’s madness!

Sarah
5 min readFeb 25, 2022
Neon yellow yarn, circular knitting needles, crochet hook, and beads
Essential sports equipment | All images by the author

Every year around this time, knitters start googling “When is March Madness?” not because we care about basketball (it is for basketball, right?) but because we’re trying to gauge how much time we have left for yarn shopping before the biggest, most competitive, most carpal-tunnel-inducing event in the crafting world.

Sock Madness.

Every March through June, thousands of fiber artists around the world take on the challenge of knitting as much as they can, as fast as they can.

Doping is permitted (and actually encouraged in the form of stroopwafels, caffeine, or wine) and our sports equipment is cozier than most. But our referees are just as eagle-eyed and the rules just as strict as in any other sport.

Is speed knitting actually a sport? Eh, probably not, but it is a competition that some of us take very, very seriously.

Cuff and part of a green sock with all-over cables and the caption “Day 1”

It goes a little something like this.

If you’re envisioning a circle of half a dozen gray-haired grannies casually knitting simple…

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Sarah
Sarah

Written by Sarah

I write a lot (shocking, I know) and it's usually about animals, travel, outdoorsy stuff, and of course, writing.