Royal Easter Show-stopping creations

BY SANDRA SIAGIAN

FOR Yvonne Betts, 50, of Grays Point, knitting is a way to relax. The stay-at-home mother-of-three picked up the hobby when she was six from her mother and has been dabbling in the craft ever since. She decided to challenge herself this year and enter some of her work into the arts and crafts competition at the Sydney Royal Easter Show. She created a knitted cardigan and sewed a child’s smock. Both items won first place. “The smock will go to a relative and I will keep the cardigan,” Mrs Betts said. “But before I wear it I think I’ll change a few things as I’ve spent so much time looking at the same thing.” Mrs Betts also won the Margo Chick Annual Award for the best overall hand-knitted exhibit. But her knitted masterpiece — which took about 150 hours to create — almost did not make it into the show. When she was adding some final touches to the cardigan she accidentally cut a hole in it six days before the competition. Mrs Betts left it for two days before deciding how she could fix it. “It was almost a disaster, but luckily I mended the hole so evenly the judges did not notice it,” Mrs Betts said.