World Extreme Crochet Championships

Dirty Granny Launch Party

That Ms Darlinghurst.  She sure is a kidder.

We all have our weird and wonderful phobias.  Snails, spiders, feet, but mine is wool.  Anything mohair or chunky knit particularly bothers me, but all knits freak me out slightly.  So much so, I once went to the extent of asking a date to remove his cardigan because I couldn’t bear the texture of it on my skin.   So what better event did my mischievous friend think it would be good to send me to cover for Eat, Drink, Play than the World Extreme Crochet Championships (WECC) in its full knitted, woolen glory.

The WECC had been brought to Australia courtesy of Matilda Bay, as part of the launch of their ‘Dirty Granny’ cider and for the occasion they had decked out the normally edgy Lo Fi gallery space in wool finery that would have made any grandmother proud.  Tea cosies, pot plant holders, coffee table doilies.  Even the gorgeous hostesses and MC had rugged up under colourful green chunky knits.  Man, there was even a raffle to win some knitwear!

So much wool everywhere...

It was announced to the crowd we were all here to witness Round 11 of the World Exterme Crochet Championships with three Australian finalists were going to battle it out live at the event for their place in the WORLD FINALS.

Le European finalist

Competing were

Allan, high altitude crocheting parachutist

Doris, a deep dive scuba crocheter

Stuart, a thrill seeking snowboarder crocheter!

yes, that is a crocheted snowboard cover in the background!

Just when I thought I was getting to grips with all the wool in the room I was confronted with another spine tingling phobia. Contortion.  While the crocheting competitors were merrily knitting away we had entertainment brought to us by the miraculously double jointed Frodo Svenson from Norway, who wriggled his way through the middle of 12” and then even more amazingly a 10” tennis racket to cheers (and shrieks of horror) from the crowd.

The event was wrapped up with the loveable Allan being named the Australian champion following the beanie making great stitch off and judging by Frodo, now fully escaped from his tennis rackets.

It was such great theatre, both myself and my cider and crochet loving + 1 had completely bought into the fact that this event was for real and there was ACTUALLY a final in Mexico, but alas, it was just some good event creativity and great casting of a very talented crochet club from Melbourne.

Maybe it was the pelting rain outside and the fact we were a room full of woolen warmth that most of the friendly crowd hung around afterwards to sample more of the cider itself, freely on tap and actually refreshing crisp which made a nice change from the more typical sweet varieties.

As for my wool phobia, by the end I still couldn’t quite bring myself to wrap myself up in one of the many crocheted blankets draped around the room, despite the evening’s wintery weather.  But, I did at least find this little guy kinda cute…

knitted octopus