I created the first Knit Madness tournament last year kind of at the last minute, and while I definitely tried to explain my rationale, it was also admittedly a lot. But now that this appears to be a yearly endeavor, I figured I should actually break down how this whole thing works.

As a reminder, I am one person putting all of this together in the middle of my full-time job of finding a job; I’m making it up as I go along. And while I might sometimes solicit suggestions on how to improve things in future years, the final decision is my own.

I’m initially publishing this before the 2026 tournament, but I’ll note whenever I make major updates.

Knit Madness is a 64-bracket tournament pitting sweaters that have popped up in movies and TV shows against one another. This garment thirst-off will continue throughout the month of March until a winner is determined.

A sweater that is worn by a character in a scripted film or at least one episode of a TV show. The TV show should ideally also be scripted, but reality TV sweaters are eligible on a case-by-case basis (e.g., if the host and/or judges are wearing it). Animated picks are also allowed.

One sweater per property can compete per year, but two sweaters in a single franchise can compete if there is enough separation between the two.

Sweaters are far from the only fiber-art-related items characters wear on movies and TV. But I think it would over-complicate things if we had a few scarves or hats in the mix with a ton of sweaters. But please nominate those hats / scarves / shawls / blankets / gloves / mittens / etc. for Knitwear of the Week!

I’m barring sweaters that appear in music videos (I’ll leave the larger analysis to more musically inclined writer) or are worn by celebrities while they’re out and about, like the Harry Styles cardigan on The Today Show (it would turn into a copyright nightmare for me). However, I’m open to featuring the former as part of KotW.

Other ineligible items: Fleece (sorry, Heated Rivalry) and items of clothing that weren’t originally knitted or crocheted that fiber artists later recreated as such (sorry Heated Rivalry, again).

As I explained in a previous post, I’m not a fan of one contender dominating a competition year after year or keeping most of the same bracket minus a few sweaters here and there. In an ideal world, I’d like to do this with all new sweaters every year. But between my own limitations and the suggestions I get from you, I might fall short. At most, I’d like to make a 3:1 bracket, in which 75% (48) of the sweaters are new and 25% (16) are repeats. The repeats would most likely come from sweaters that got knocked out early—like in the first or second round.

However, there are two big exceptions for the repeat rule, which I’ve included below.

For those keeping track, here is every Knit Madness winner to date:

Here are the 15 sweaters (listed in alphabetical order by title) that made last year’s Sweet Sixteen (but didn’t win) and cannot compete again until 2027:

In its current iteration, the Knit Madness bracket consists of 64 unique sweaters, which will be sorted into one of eight categories:

Apart from Cables (which will always be grouped together; it feels unfair otherwise), the remaining categories will be randomly paired each year to make up each of the other three groupings.

The sweaters in each of the four groups will be given a ranking between 1 and 16. To give me an idea of where the use a formula I took and adapted from Trial By Content’s Big Movie Bet (RIP), except the numbers/metrics I’m using to determine the ranking are all mine. Yes, this means I have to do math.

A film or season of TV receives up to 10 points for every 5% on Metacritic (a more nuanced review aggregation site than Rotten Tomatoes, imo) up to 50%. For every additional 5% it has, it will receive an additional point. The most film or show can receive here is 20 points, which would mean it has a 100% Metacritic score.

If no Metacritic score/page exists, RT can stand in in a pinch. And if there’s no Rotten Tomatoes score, IMDb will have to suffice.

Box Office: A film earns up to 10 points for every $10 million up to $100 million it makes globally. It earns an additional point for every additional $50 million it earned. For example, Titanic nabbed a score of 35 for its $2.2 billion global box office total here last year.

If there are no box office figures (e.g., it never had a theatrical release/is from a tight-lipped streamer), it receives a flat 5 points.

Nielsen Ratings: A TV show earns up to 10 points for every 500,000 viewers up to 5 million for the average total viewers it received for the season of TV that the sweater appears in, according to Nielsen or an alternative independent TV ratings system. Shows in which season ratings are not available receive a flat 5 points.

Streaming “ratings” are irrelevant here because claiming that a season of TV was viewed for “600 million minutes” in its first week or something like that (an older Netflix metric) means jack shit to me, and the calculus of “total time divided by run time” to determine viewership is total bullshit.

A film or season of TV receives up to 10 points for every 0.3 it has on Letterboxd or Serializd up to a 3.0 average star rating from viewers. From there, every 0.1 stars gives you an additional point. Shows can receive a maximum of 30 points, which would mean it has a perfect 5.0 rating.

If a pattern—regardless of whether it’s an official or fan-made—for a featured sweater exists online, the sweater gets an additional 10 points, even if it’s no longer publicly available. It also can’t be a generic pattern that looks similar to the one that appeared in a film or show (this can be a thing with cabled sweaters).

It can only earn this bonus once, even if more than one pattern is available to purchase/download.

To use last year as the example, the highest total that a 2025 sweater received was Murder, She Wrote with 69 (nice) while the lowest was Anna and the Apocalypse at 24; the latter being a film that beat the no. 1 seed in its group.

Around 95% of the time, I’ll just use those numbers to rank all of the picks. The other 5% of the time, I ignore the number and order a few around based on the vibes. To give one example, Titanic ranked higher than Knives Out when I did the numbers (mostly due to the former’s massive box office haul), but that didn’t feel right. Same with putting Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone above Murder, She Wrote. But it all worked out in the end.

In Year One, voting worked like this: I posted a poll every day on Bluesky using its fledgling poll integration and you had 24 hours to vote. Looking back, that seemed to be a bit too quick, and early feedback indicated that many of you did too.

The biggest change coming to Year Two of Knit Madness is the length of time people will get to vote: I’m doubling it from one day to two. The plan is for the tournament to last throughout most of March, so hopefully by starting it earlier and spreading it out more makes things feel less rushed and chaotic.

Starting on March 1, I will post each of the matchups using Bluesky’s poll function, which will be embedded directly in the newsletter. I’m also debating adding a Google form option for folks not on Bluesky. Which, if that’s the case, will allow people to vote twice. I’ll also share updates in my Instagram Stories.

Along with subscribing to Knit(ting) Flicks to ensure updates end up in your inbox, you should also follow me on Bluesky.

Rallying behind your favorite and getting your fellow fans to vote for it? Perfectly sound. Creating several email and/or Bluesky accounts to vote just to push your pick over the edge? Come on, don’t be a dick. Need I emphasize that this is a free contest with zero stakes, you would be better spent using your time/energy for other things than to bot your way to victory.

Here is the part that didn’t fit elsewhere, and possibly might get the most edits in the future.

First off, if the sweater you’re championing wins, you get bragging rights. Which, if you are the kind of person who rallied your friends/family/star-crossed lovers to vote for your knit, is not a small thing.

But here’s what happens afterwards. One, as the undisputed winner, the show/film housing the winner will no longer be eligible for future contests; there are no repeats here. And two, at some point during the next year, I will write a newsletter dedicated to that sweater, the film/show it appears in, and—if applicable—any other sweaters along with it.

…No. While I would be very impressed if you got a perfect bracket—my understanding is that, in the case of the college basketball tournament, is kind of impossible—this is a free contest that you can vote in.

HOWEVER, if you subscribe to this newsletter and live in the US, you can weigh in on the future of Knit Madness for a chance to win a hand-knitted hat from me. Just fill out this survey any time between now and Monday, February 16 at 11:59pm ET, and your name will be entered into a drawing. Here’s what I’m looking for and what it entails.