Extreme Crochet Championships
Have you ever wanted a cover to keep your bike warm?
Tennis racquets get cold too, but not if they have crocheted covers like these.
And it never hurts to heat up the basketball hoop…
You may be wondering where I found all this sports-inspired crafty goodness. Well, I was privileged to attend the Melbourne round of the World Extreme Crochet Championships at 1000 Pound Bend a few nights ago. Here are the competitors, practising their extreme sports and crocheting at the same time.
Stuart the snowboarder… check out his board and the snowflakes!
Scuba-diving Doris and her underwater friends…
And I’ve forgotten this guy’s name but let’s call him Parachuting Paul… (his name quite possibly was Paul anyway…)
These three had to crochet a beanie in about an hour to decide who goes to Sydney for the next finals, and after that apparently they get to go to Mexico for the world championships. Doris won the Melbourne heat, by the way.
(SPOILER ALERT! STOP READING NOW IF YOU BELIEVE THIS COMPETITION IS REAL)
I’m a little skeptical about whether they actually will go to Mexico because this whole event was actually just a marketing gig for the launch of Matilda Bay’s new cider called Dirty Granny. I like to live in fantasy land, so was sort of hoping an extreme crochet competition really existed, but as soon as I saw that two of the competitors were guys, alarm bells started ringing in my head. I mean, do you know even ONE guy who crochets? So TWO making it to the finals of a competition was a bit suss… the friend I went with happened to know the partner of Snowboarder Stuart, so we got the whole back story – the three “competitors” all work at the one knitting/wool company, and were asked to knit/crochet 5000 coasters for Matilda Bay, and the “competition” grew out from there. Or something like that, anyway. I’d like to think it would be possible to have a real extreme crochet contest some day. What extreme sport would you do while you fire up your hook?
there is a crochet/crafty group of yarn bombers who meet at the 1000 pound most sunday afternoons, so YES it is a crafty place to hang, and yes, amazing stuff happens there.
Love it.I would totally be part of the extreme knitting team in the craft olympics. We can make this happen Leeyong!
Oh no… I'm going to pretend I didn't read that… that's just another tempting way to spend a weekend instead of getting boring work done!!!
AMAZING! I've been wanting to learn how to crochet for the longest time, thanks for the inspiration and I can't wait to check out 1000pound bend on a Sunday arvo as per Lyndal's comment – sounds just like my thing.I'd also totally spectate knitting in a craft olympics (there's a craft olympics!?) – perhaps I could make some oversized pom-poms to cheerlead with? 😉
I want it to be real! Extreme crochet sounds like several million types of awesome.
wow, bit of a response to this one!! I've done other crochet posts previously so if you can be bothered trawling through my past stuff, you may turn up some other great links…Cheryl I think you could form the committee for the Craft Olympics. I hereby nominate you and Sian for President and CEO!!
Oh wow, how cool!
I don't know how you manage to find these crochet events! Yes, I seem to remember a bicycle seat warmer (or regretsy link to one?) in one of those older posts…not for those with delicate sensibilities though!
There are actually lots of guys who crochet. In fact, believe it or not, crochet is becoming rather popular among teenagers who are launching clubs in schools. They're calling it bro-chet. That said, I think it's still an awesome contest to look at. 🙂
Now THAT is awesome. BRO-CHET. I LOVE IT!!!
… and I meant to say, CLARE, glad you are still around! How's Mia?
Yes – still following and loving the posts, especially the crazy crafting / felined themed ones! Mia's naughty as ever – she's animating a sugar sachet as I type… And how's the lovely Suki?
Suki's fine, getting more senile by the day but in a cute way… she has got quite clingy and has to sit next to me while I put my makeup on, do sit-ups, cut material out etc – unless she's asleep and doesn't notice…
extreme crochet – count me in! (beats the s… out of extreme ironing any day 😉