Heavy metal and knitting doesn’t exactly sound like a match made in heaven, but that hasn’t stopped some truly creative minds in Finland from combining them in the world’s very first Heavy Metal Knitting Championship.

Finnish Marketing Agency Tovari teamed up with Joensuu City Cultural Services and the Joensuu Conservatory in order to bring together two of the most popular things in the northern European country. Heavy metal is really big in Finland, with over 50 heavy metal bands per 100,000 Finnish citizens (more than anywhere else in the world), and knitting not less so, as hundreds of thousands of people out of a population of around 5.5 million are practising some kind of needlework crafts. After brainstorming for the best way to combine the two, the creative minds behind this initiative came up with the World Heavy Metal Knitting Championship.

“What combines them both is the great joy of creativity,” the official website of the event states. “When playing guitar as well as knitting stitches it is all about the pleasure of creating something cool with your hands. And – it’s all about the attitude!”

“In heavy metal knitting, needlework and music become united like never before. On the same stage, accompanied by a million dollar guitar solo, with hair flowing in the air, there’s heavy metal music and knitting, shaking hands,” the organizers add. “Knitting to the rhythm of heavy metal music can be compared to playing air guitar – which is a Finnish way to goof around as well. In heavy metal knitting, the knitter becomes a part of the band, showing their best needlework tricks as the heavy riffs echo on the background. The knitter takes part in the jam while their balls of yarn and knitting needles swish through the air.”

 

Knitting enthusiasts wanting to take part in the world’s first Heavy Metal Knitting Championship have to download the song “Fight or Die” by Joensuu heavy metal band Maniac Abductor and upload a one-minute clip of themselves knitting to it to YouTube. This guarantees them a spot in the event’s semifinal, and while it’s not clear how applicants make it to the live final, on 11 July 2019, I guess organizers will select the best acts.

This all seems very intriguing, but at this point no one really knows what the event will actually be like. It does sound like a lot of fun, though, especially if you’re into both knitting and heavy metal, which I suspect is pretty rare.