Alice Springs Beanie Festival

More than craft fair, this annual festival is a lighthearted celebration of Indigenous culture and the colours of the desert.

Editorial Review

27 - 30 June, 2008

Central Australia is perhaps not the first place the uninitiated would expect to find a homage to woolly headgear, but desert nights get pretty chilly and Alice Springs locals are happy to host such a head-warming event as the annual Beanie Festival.

Last year's festival was a marked success, allowing the organisers to take this year's event further afield, running workshops in remote Indigenous communities across Central Australia. This year's theme is Mukata! Mukati! Muna! Beanies From All Around and it is indeed expected to collect entries from far afield and from many diverse Indigenous groups.

Events on the Beanie calendar include an opening night party, workshops in crochet, felting, beanie adornment and basketry, art stalls, the Beanie Olympics (where keen competitors try to seize the title of fastest beanie-maker) and, of course, an enormous exhibition of beanies at the Araluen Arts Centre, aka Beanie Central. The thousands of handcrafted entries vie for a prize in one of the 14 competition categories, which range from best 'greenie beanie' (a beanie made from natural fibres and recycled materials) to best tea cosy (really just beanies for teapots, after all) and a people's choice award for the beanie that best wins over the crowd.

Image: Merran Hughes

Shelley Tustin