Some of the central aims of the festival include:

• to promote local Indigenous textiles and crafts,
• promote the development of skills
• develop a textiles micro- industry that will provide employment opportunities in the region

Since the very first festival, the beanie festival has been involved with communities in the local area, running workshops and employing Aboriginal artists to demonstrate their skills at the festival.

Beanies, Baskets and Bushtucker
A project of the Alice Springs Beanie Festival in collaboration with Tjanpi baskets and the Pioneer Hall of Fame.

2006 Remote workshops

The lead up to the 2006 festival involved workshops to develop beanie making skills for the residents of Ernabella, Mimili, Titjikala and the Town amps of Alice Springs. These workshops were funded by an NT Arts Regional Arts Grant , Festivals Australia Regional Residencies Grant and the Beanie Festival . The workshops were well attended and allowed for the active participation of Indigenous beanie makers in the festival.
The women created works of beanie art for the exhibition, and beanies to sell in the market place. The women were also invited to participate in the festival, some being paid to demonstrate traditional spinning, some teaching basket weaving and beanie making, and some visiting and experiencing the festival for the first time. Remote festival funding allowed for us to include the women through car hire and petrol to collect women at bring them in and offer them some tucker and access to workshops.

ERNABELLA Workshops- report by Lisa Waller, 2006 Artist in Residence at Ernabella Arts
My objectives were to help the women at Ernabella to create exhibition quality beanies for the Alice Springs Beanie Festival by working with them on designs that spoke to the ‘Colours of the Country’ theme of the 2006 Alice Springs Beanie Festival, teaching them some new crochet stitches and ways to embellish their work. I also wanted to help them to improve the quality of their work by teaching finishing techniques and emphasizing the importance of professional finish for retailers and buyers.
More than 100 beanies were made, and in my opinion about 25 were of a very high quality. Three themes emerged over the workshop.
Some artists used their traditionally spun wool and dyed emu feathers and gumnut beads to create wild “tribal’’ headdresses in strong colours. I was able to help the artists improve the quality of these spectacular beanies by teaching them how to dye the feathers, tie a special knot for securing feathers and showing them bead embroidery stitches and how to weave in their ends so there are no knots in their work.
The second theme was ‘minya wira tjuta’ (lots of wonderful women). This theme emerged out of the women’s enjoyment of the workshops. One artist made a beanie in the likeness of one of the arts centre workers and she amused the other artists by using it as a hand puppet. The next morning another ‘woman’ beanie had been made and soon most artists in the group had made one. They had much fun using the beanies as puppets. Some of the new textural stitches I had been teaching were used to create hair, faces, breasts and other features. Each woman is a complete individual and these beanies are colourful and comic.
‘Wild Animals’ was another theme to emerge. Feathers were also used in many of these works as grass or as part of the animal. Other skills I introduced included working around small wire frames, making poms poms and doing embroidery.
One of the most interesting aspects of this body of work was what it said about the state of the environment in the desert. There are no kangaroos, emus or possums for a long way around Ernabella. Instead the women depicted the camp dogs, camels, rabbits, dingoes and cats they see in their environs. Birds, lizards and snakes also featured but overwhelmingly it was feral animals that featured.
I also introduced a basic weaving technique for making beanies, which the women loved, as they used to do weaving at the arts centre many years ago.
The work was displayed in the arts centre throughout the project and many community members and visitors enjoyed seeing the work.
MIMILI
At Mimili Maku Arts Centre my aims were different. Only a few of the artists there had crocheting skills, so I spent my time teaching basic crochet and beanie-making to the group. I was able to show some of the more experienced crocheters some new stitches and work with them on improving the quality of their work through colour and yarn choice and finishing techniques. I also spent some time teaching the arts centre co-ordinator Claudia Murray-White so that she could help the experienced crocheters to keep mentoring the new beanie recruits in the arts centre.
I only spent a short time at Mimili, but the community’s enthusiasm for beanie making was such that they have entered more than 60 beanies in the 2006 festival.
Some of the older women at Mimili can do traditional spinning and they expressed a strong desire to get materials and do their own spinning again in the future.
They all seemed to really enjoy making beanies and for the older women it was a welcome connection with their past, when spinning, rug making, knitting and crochet were everyday activities.
Many young community members visited the arts centre to see what was going on. Some helped with activities like winding skeins of wool into balls and enjoyed seeing and trying on the beanies.As part of the Beanie Festival:
Eight women came from Ernabella as paid artists to sit during the festival and demonstrate their traditional spinning techniques and interact with the tourists. The women were very proud and excited to be at the Festival, they were proud of the beanies in the exhibition and enjoyed laughing at themselves on the DVD shown on the exhibition walls. Three of the women took out prizes in the National Alice Springs Beanie Competition and were there on the Friday opening night to see their winning beanies paraded on stage with the other winners from around Australia and Japan.
Many people commented on the easy going inclusion of the Aboriginal women in the festival, and acknowledged the festival as one of Alice Springs’ truly cross-cultural events.

Town Camp Workshops

5 paid project managers (Adi Dunlop, Liz Scott, Nicky Schonkala. Siri Omberg and Jo Nixon) worked in collaboration with 5 paid Indigenous beanie artists (Pantjiti McKenzie, Daisy Baker, Margaret Robinson, Nellie Paterson and Angkaliya) to coordinate and deliver workshops in the town camps of Alice Springs.
Workshops were held in 7 town camps (Ilparpa, Mt Nancy, Trucking Yards, Abbott’s Camp, Hidden Valley, Little Sisters, Kanta Camp) and hostels(Ayipirinya, Topsy Smith) in Alice Springs. Identifying the place to hold workshops was determined using a variety of factors, indication by indigenous artists, established relationships between town camp residents and project managers, residents availability at designated workshop times. Workshops were mainly held in residents yards under a tree, some were held at the Hidden Valley Arts Centre and some in the Aboriginal Hostels.

Residents/participants were very welcoming of the project, offering to assist with the unpacking of the equipment, creating areas for the workshops, asking us to return. Many women were able to experience beanie making and the Beanie festival will continue these workshops into 2007 to allow the women to further develop skills and take part in the festival.
Participants learnt the skills of creative beanie making and those required to make a beanie a readily saleable item.

This work continues with numerous workshops being run from April - June 2007