Stitched up: Pat Belton, at front, with, from left, Jeanette Jones, Judith McPhail, Claire Crameri and Tess Cassar.
ERIN PEARSON
TORQUAY’S Gilbert Street will come alive with noggin-warming knitwear in a celebration of the beanie this weekend.
Organiser Jan Hale said the fourth annual Torquay Beanie Festival would elevate the headdress to icon status for two weeks as residents celebrated the kitted, crocheted, sewed or stitched hat.
“Gilbert Street businesses and Bellbrae and community halls will display beanies and roving patrons of the festival will move around the streets modelling beanies,” Ms Hale said.
“We’re also running a competition for people to enter their hand-made designs and expect to get around 300.
“The festival will then culminate with a concert in which people can come together, celebrate the beanie and sing the festival’s beanie theme song.”
Ms Hale said the festival concept emerged after a knitting group heard about an Alice Spring Beanie Festival in 2008.
After almost folding due to a lack of members the knitting group recruited and now met weekly, she said.
The women knitted together every Tuesday at Torquay Uniting Church.
“We decided knitting was too beautiful to stop and now we meet weekly and knit for charities,” Ms Hale said.
“One lady knits beanies for premature babies. It’s a great little group and we get so excited each year to share out knitting with the community at the beanie festival.”
Claire Crameri, who joined the tight-knit group three years ago, was looking forward to displaying her hard work at the festival.
“The festival has a child’s and teenage category in the competition and I always say to young people that this is what you can do with a pair of needles and some wool.
“There’s always something to learn in knitting.”
Torquay Beanie Festival runs from Saturday until July 31.
