CULTURE/LIFESTYLE
Astrid Hickman taught herself to crochet four years ago. “No one I knew really knew how to crochet . . . so I taught myself with books from the library and videos on YouTube,” she says. “At that time I was employed doing graveyard shifts and I just needed to do something during the day.” Nowadays, Hickman is selling her work and, for the first time, has put entries in the 2024 Royal Hobart Show's creative crafts exhibition, winning won first prize for a baby heirloom dress and second prize for a baby cardigan.
“I wanted to enter the show because I just wanted to be part of another community. I find it’s very gratifying to be in this community of people who are bringing the trend of crochet back.”
Tasmania’s creative crafts community has been growing in recent years, with more than 100 classes being added to the Hobart Show’s creative crafts schedule for this year’s show, and about 700 items entered across the cookery and craft sections, up from about 400 a few years ago. The new classes include the return of some crafts that’ve been absent from the show schedule for some years, such as leatherwork, ceramics and machine knitting, as well as new classes for existing sections, including crochet, knitting and cookery.
“We’re up 32% on our entries, and it’s the best result we’ve had in 12 years,” says Royal Agricultural Society of Tasmania operations manager McKinley Garwood. “Some of our biggest years are 1,000 [entries] so we're creeping up. We don't know what it is, but we just know that people are keen to enter again, that people want to be involved in the show.”
Garwood believes covid helped drive up interest “because everyone had been doing crafts”.
Rosemary Kerrison, who coordinates the show’s creative crafts section, says it was “inspiring” to see other people’s exhibits. She’s been involved with the show for “many, many years”, first as an exhibitor and later as a member of the committee. She has also noticed an increase in the number of younger exhibitors entering.
“I think they’re so busy and it’s nice to see that they actually have the time to be able to produce exhibits, and surprisingly beautiful ones,” she notes.
And it’s not just women exhibiting. Garwood says she had noticed more men exhibiting. “They’re quite young as well, so that’s very exciting for us to see.”
While it can be satisfying for crafters and cooks to see their work on display, especially if it’s adorned with a blue ribbon, there are other benefits craft can bring to people’s lives.
“There are so many mental health benefits associated with crafting,” says clinical psychologist and director of Psyche Mental Health Centre Allison Wells. “Engaging in crafting activities can enhance cognitive functions such as problem solving, memory and cognition by stimulating the brain through engaging in repetitive tasks, learning new skills. Craft also promotes emotional wellbeing because it’s fun, it’s fun to do and it offers a sense of achievement and accomplishment as well as reducing stress.”
She also notes that craft could also help with meaningful emotional expression. “For some people, they can really struggle to put words to their emotions and their experiences, so crafting can offer a really safe, non-verbal outlet for expressing those emotions and experiences as well as processing them.”
Craft also brings people together. Knitter Sam Leishman started a men’s craft group, Great Balls of Fibre, in Hobart in 2020. “Knitting and working with yarn gives you something to do while you’re in a social space, so if you want to engage with the conversation and chat about whatever it is that you want to chat about, that’s fine,” he says. “If you’re not interested, or you’re a bit quieter, or you just don’t want to engage you can feel quite comfortable sitting there for an hour or two and not really having to say much at all.”
Leishman says he learnt to knit as a child, but took it up again about six years ago when he decided to have a go at knitting a beanie for his sister’s grandchild. “It was a terrible thing,” he said of the hat. “But I thought, ‘Oh that was kind of fun.’ I got the idea of the pattern and had another go, and just sort of went from there.”
For Leishman, knitting has replaced a drinking problem. Nowadays I can just sit at home quite happily, stick on a podcast or an audio book or some music, and just grab a ball of wool and create something instead of drinking myself into a stupor. It’s been really, really beneficial for me.”
Knitter Robyne Conway is also a member of a craft group, Sip and Stitch, which meets at a North Hobart café. She says she became involved with group crafting on the advice of a psychologist who was treating her for severe depression, adding that knitting with others, and being encouraged by them, “completely changed my life in a major way”.
“When I joined the original group, I made friends and then, over time, I discovered I could make [knitting] patterns. And now people all around the world buy my patterns.”
Meeting younger knitters has also broadened her skills. “I learned a whole lot of new ways of knitting . . . because these young women were doing all sorts of things that I’d never seen before, and they’re really good at teaching me how to do things and encouraging me to try new, different ways of knitting,” she says.
Wells says craft groups had “amazing” social benefits. “Craft groups foster a sense of connection, and that feeling of inclusion and acceptance, and the non-judgemental nature of craft groups can be really fabulous for combating feelings of loneliness and isolation.”
For Hickman, the repetitive motion of crochet helps her relax. “I have recently had an endometriosis diagnosis, so it has helped me get through that just with the therapeutic benefits of being able to do it mindlessly.”
ABOVE The Sip and Stitch craft group forges social connections for those who like craft.
PHOTO ABC News/Adam Holmes
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