Tom Daley to Host Knitting Competition Show

There’s been talk recently that a British knitting competition show was in the works, and Tom Daley has announced on Instagram that he’s going to be the host.

With the working title of “The Game of Wool,” the program will be on Channel 4 and is currently looking for contestants.

According to a post on Gathered, the show will feature 10 contestants and each episode will involve two challenges. One will be a team project and one for individual knitters that aims to test their skills and their style.

I have no idea how this will work in the real world, since knitting takes a lot of time and there’s not really any way to speed it up. It’s also not super dramatic when you fail like it is when cooking or baking (or even in fashion design when you cut something wrong and it ends up not fitting).

In any case, the post says the judges will be Di Gilpin and Sheila Greenwell, who have knit for numerous fashion brands and will judge both knitting technique and creative approaches and the knitters are put through their paces on a variety of projects in both type and scale.

I’ll let you know more about it as we hear more about it.

In the meantime, if you happen to be a British knitter with an interest in figuring out what a knitting competition show looks like before the rest of us, you can apply to become one of the contestants at the Game of Wool website. According to the site, participants must be 18 or older and need to be able to commit to filming away from home for eight weeks.

The application states that they are looking for people with a passion for the craft, who are able to both knit and crochet, are honest about their skills and can share photos of their work. The deadline to apply is midnight on January 5, 2025.

If you apply I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via Instagram]

There are two schools of thought when it comes to instructional books about knitting. Either focus in one particular technique or kind of knitting (stranded knitting, say, or brioche) or try to cover a little bit of everything in a reference book that knitters will use throughout their careers.

The Knitting Book by Frederica Patmore and Dr. Vikki Haffenden aims to be the second kind. The subtitle is: a step-by-step guide to creating imaginative projects for the home and to wear. I’m not sure it does that, exactly, but it does include a quick look at a lot of different techniques and stitch patterns you might use in your projects.

A “guide to creating imaginative projects” sounds to me like it’s about design, but this book is not. There’s 1/3 of a page about altering patterns that only talks about how to add length to a sleeve and adjust where the increases go.

There’s nothing about measuring your body (the section on choosing a size in a pattern only suggests measuring a garment you already own), general garment construction, ease or stitch pattern multiples. The section on gauge (which is the last third of the page with choosing a garment size and altering patterns, discussed above) just says to knit a swatch, block and measure it to compare to a pattern, with no discussion on how you might use your swatch to design your own project or alter a pattern to meet your gauge.

If you ignore the subtitle, what you will find is a lot of information about different kinds of knitting and various techniques you might want to try on your projects. There are 20 cast ons and 15 bind off options, for instance, all discussed before you learn how to knit or purl. (Another quibble I have with this book is the order in which things are presented, but that’s relatively minor.)

You’ll find quick hits on increases and decreases, twists and cables, lace, colorwork, textured effects like fisherman’s rib and brioche, loops, mosaic knitting, double knitting, decorative stitches, shadow knitting, bias knitting, mitered squares, entrelac and more. There are tips for selvedge stitches, knitting with beads, adding buttonholes, picking up stitches and more.

A few patterns at the back give knitters a taste of some of the techniques included, but they’re not rated by skill level and the first one is a bias knit gradient scarf worked in six different colors of mohair, which isn’t a thing I’d wish on any beginner.

And I guess that’s maybe what my issue with the book is. I don’t know if it’s meant for beginners and it doesn’t seem to, either. I feel like this book would be overwhelming to new knitters and doesn’t really give you a place to start or all the information you might need to do projects well.

The variety of techniques included is fun, and there are also stitch patterns in the back you can use on your own projects, but again it doesn’t really provide any guidance for how to design your own projects so I don’t know how helpful all of that is.

I want to like books like this because having one reference that helps you with a lot of different things is great, I’m just not sure this is the one. If you can find it at your library or local book store and flip through it before buying, I think that would be a great idea to see if it’s a book that would be helpful for you.

And if you have this book and love it please let me know! I’m sure it’s good for someone I’m just not sure who.

About the book: 336 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by DK. Suggested retail price $40.

Have you read?