Astrid Hickman taught herself the old-fashioned craft of crochet four years ago.
“No-one that I knew really knew how to crochet … so I taught myself with books from the library and videos on YouTube,” Ms Hickman said.
“At that time I was employed doing graveyard shifts and I just needed to do something during the day.”
Now, Ms Hickman is selling her work and, for the first time, has put entries in the Royal Hobart Show’s creative crafts exhibition, which is being held at City Hall while a redevelopment of the Hobart Showground continues.
“I wanted to enter into 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.”
Ms Hickman received a first prize for the baby heirloom dress she entered, and second prize for a baby cardigan.
Classes in leatherwork and ceramics back
The creative crafts community has been growing.
More than 100 classes were added to the Hobart Show’s creative crafts schedule for this year’s show, and about 700 items have been 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 have been absent from the show schedule for some years, such as leatherwork, ceramics and machine knitting, and the addition of new classes for existing sections, including crochet, knitting and cookery.
“We’re up 32 per cent on our entries, and it’s the best result we’ve had in 12 years,” Royal Agricultural Society of Tasmania operations manager McKinley Garwood said.
“Some of our biggest years are 1000 [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.”
Ms Garwood said the COVID-19 pandemic helped drive up interest “because everyone had been doing crafts”.
Rosemary Kerrison is the coordinator of the show’s creative crafts section.
It’s a role she has had for about six years, but Ms Kerrison has been involved with the show for “many, many years”, first as an exhibitor and later as a member of the committee.
Ms Kerrison said it was “inspiring” to see other people’s exhibits.
“I think, ‘Where did they get that idea from?’ … and I love that.
“It’s really inspiring to see what comes in the door.”
Ms Kerrison 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 said.
Ms Garwood said she had noticed more men exhibiting.
“They’re quite young as well, so that’s very exciting for us to see.”
The mental health benefits of craft
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 that craft can bring to people’s lives.
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I’ve been knitting for over 61 years, and crocheting for over 55 years. There’s nothing new about ‘returning’ crafts, and in this day and age, the art of crafts being passed down from generation to generation has well and truly gone, due to the ‘digital age’, and teaching them ‘should’ make a comeback.
My ex learned to crochet when he was in his 30s, and since then, has won many prizes in shows, and when we lived in Canberra/Queanbeyan, we had a stall at a craft market every week.
I now have 3 crochet and 2 knitting WIPs (Works In Progress), working on them daily. I take these with me to appointments so I have something to ‘do’ whilst waiting.