Beanie Festival

There are big doings here in town tomorrow. The Beanie Festival!!!!! I went last year with my daughter, not really knowing what to expect. To tell you the truth I didn't expect much of anything. This is a little town out in the middle of the Australian outback....well holy cow was I ever surprised! The Beanie festival was wonderful. Made me want to learn to knit. What the heck is the Beanie Festival? you may be asking yourself....well it is where knitting women all over Australia send their hand knit beanie hats to Alice Springs where they are sold at this little show. At first I thought it was only Aboriginal women who did the knitting. I heard that for some communities, the funds raised during Beanie Festival is the only income for the entire camp/village.

See, here is one of the Indigenous ladies making a basket.

Here are Emma and I (last year) notice all the hats in her arms....she just needed them all. We did spend a small fortune trying to support indigenous knitting artists, but come to find out a bunch of the hats are made by regular white Australian ladies, not that that is bad. Their work was stunning. Wool, cashmere, alpaca, hand dyed, felted. It was overwhelming all the hats.

They are hanging from the ceiling for Pete's sake! I think we tried on 2/3rds of the hats at the show last year, and I will be wearing my hair in a pony tail so it won't get in the way of style!

Anyway....I wish you all could be here too. We would have such a great time trying on silly hats. I hope to see Wendy and Tambur...I talked to Melanie and she said she was going to be there. Best even of the year!

Oh and my Chili has been simmering away for most of the day. Last year my husband and I took two of the prizes home at the 4th of July party, that is held on the 28th of June. His won for best tasting and mine won for most hot. Last year I used lamb in the chili, this year I have goat. It smells pretty good....

Ok, take care and let me know if you want some crazy knit hats. I plan on purchasing several!

xo,

Tia