The Fibre Artist Imagineer

The incurious greeting of a gentle Saluki, one of the world’s oldest dog breeds, a lounge room crammed with an enormous array of colourful knitted craft works, and walls plastered with posters of well-known musos immediately transport me into a storybook fantasy world – one inhabited by imagineer and driving force behind Knitfest – Debs Swain.

by Judy Fredriksen

Knitting since she was aged seven, Debs’ latent skill for unique craft designs began to manifest in her younger years when she travelled from Rochedale into Brisbane City for work.

“I had an hour trip on the train every day and I was making these simple little cotton tops on the train. I could knit the front on the way in, and the back on the way out. Because the same people travelled to work every day with me, people would ask, ‘Can you make me one?’

“I had this wonderful little business going, making tops for people on the train. That gave me the idea that I could design my own knitwear, so I started doing my own designs after that.”

Debs then progressed into owning a craft shop and nursery at Caboolture with her husband. That was like an Aladdin’s Cave for her; she was totally enchanted by the incredible variety, colours and textures of all the new and exotic yarns that had suddenly become fashionable.

Then, as can happen in life, children came along, and things changed. In 1985 she moved to Maleny where there was a lovely little craft shop in the main street. Today it is the location of Rather Bizr.

“We used to stand outside the shop with the owners, Ursula and Julie, and I'd say, ‘One day, we should have a beanie and scarf festival here.’”

And so the seed for Knitfest was sowed, though it would take another 30 years for that seed to germinate and flourish.

Meanwhile Debs, who is also a talented musician and plays slide guitar, was playing music gigs fulltime in South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales, with her band, Blues Arcane.

However, it was her calm insightfulness and strong organisational skills that saw her life take another twist, launching her into the rarefied stratosphere of event management.

“We were gigging 3–4 nights a week, doing small tours, and I was working for all the different street press as a journo and photo journalist. I did interviews with all the major bands, and musos were asking me to book their band.

“I was writing gig and CD reviews for different acts – everybody liked my advice. Big name bands from overseas started sending me their cds to review.”

Debs was so well respected that bands wanted her to manage them. She ended up in charge of 25 different acts, including several big-name performers like Dallas Frasca, Ash Grunwald, Nathan Kaye and Mark Easton. (As a side note, Mick Jagger and Bette Midler both became proud owners of Debs’ jumpers!)

Eventually, she found herself working for places like Cooly Rocks On, Woodford Folk Festival, Motorfest, Soundfest, Mitchell Creek Rock N Blues Fest and Big Day Out. This lady was engaged by some really big venues and had developed serious street cred!

On the downside though, she was constantly away from home, much to the disappointment of her partner. Tired of her never-ending absences, he said to Debs: “Why don’t you put something on here?”

Those few simple words turned out to be just the right fertiliser for the beanie and scarf festival idea to sprout and grow into Knitfest.

Now in its sixth year, Knitfest has seen the township of Maleny yarnbombed nearly every winter when trees, buildings and fences around town are decorated with snuggly woollen covers, creative mobiles depicting myriad elements of nature, or mysterious characters borne out of the imaginations of playful children.

Knitfest includes numerous workshops where you can learn to knit, crochet, create macramé, needle felt or weaving, or even spin your own wool.

Several experienced and talented fibre artists help Debs every year, their creativity being so admirable that in 2022, they were invited to yarnbomb the Queen Street Mall, Brisbane.

This year, the Brisbane City Council has invited them back to yarnbomb a new shopping centre at Mt Gravatt. For this occasion, they are creating Australian-themed creatures depicting nature and the Great Barrier Reef.

People come from all over the world for Knitfest, says Debs. They come from England, Japan, Texas, USA, Canada, Turkey, as well as from all over Australia.

Even when the event has struggled to find funding, Debs has come up with some kind of free event to support the community, something that is important to her personal values. Events bring a lot of business to a small town, she says.

“Last year, because we couldn’t put the event on, we did something different. We started up ‘hats for heroes’. It was making beanies, scarves and comfort bears for all the first responders and people that have been victims of disasters.” All were well received.

This year, the theme for Maleny Knitfest is ‘Wild Women’ and is entirely open to interpretation, says Deb.

The festival will run from July 1-3, but half of the workshops are already booked out, so attendees need to get in quickly!

If you would like to become involved in Knitfest in any way, either as a volunteer, stallholder or enter the competitions, details are on the website, knitfest.com.au, or visit the page on Facebook/Instagram.