New award aims to keep arts & crafts traditions alive at Show

Margaret Holder’s daughter Elizabeth Hudson, right, with Racheal Pascoe. Racheal is sponsoring the Arts & Crafts Awards 2024 at the Sunshine Coast Show to honour the late Margaret Holder, pictured below.

Margaret Holder passed away last year (2023).

The Arts and Crafts section of the Sunshine Coast Show has always been a fabulous showcase of local handmade goods. This year a new range of prizes has been introduced in honour of a wonderful patron of the Arts and Crafts on the Sunshine Coast - Margaret Holder. Margaret passed away last year, but her family and friends want her love of all things handmade to live on.

Margaret Holder (nee Cahill) was born in 1932 in Sydney, her father was a milk man and her mother a tailoress. It was Margaret’s mother who taught her to sew, crochet and knit as a young girl. As a young mum herself with 2 children, Margaret made their clothes, crocheted and knitted jumpers for them.

On retirement her love of the crafty arts was taken to the next level when she completed a technical arts course at St George Technical College in Sydney. During this course, she learnt paper and fabric arts, craft skills which she went on to share and teach others. Margaret was all about taking the time to share what she knew. She liked to help others and shared in the success when a project had been completed which used newly learned skills.

For many years Margaret would teach the skills of crochet, patchwork quilting, knitting, paper tole and embroidery to younger people. She was always delighted to be passing down the skills and knowledge she had learned to the younger generations. In her later years she spent her days crocheting soft toys which she donated to the Nambour and Sunshine Coast University Hospital for sick children. Hundreds of children over the years have received a soft toy Margaret had made to brighten their stay in hospital. Margaret also continued to mentor and teach young and old to crochet.

How to Enter

The prizes this year are for the specific areas that Margaret just loved to work in, which were Crochet, Embroidery, Patchwork Quilting, Paper Tolle and Knitting. 

This year the best entry in each of those sections will be awarded the Margaret Holder Award for Best in the category and receive $100 each.

Interested in entering some of your work this year? Simply see the Competitions section of the Sunshine Coast Show website to see the details. 

The prizes are sponsored by Gavin and Racheal Pascoe.