Bayside Brown Owls Term 2 Dates

Term 2 dates have been penciled in for Bayside Brown Owls! We meet once every three weeks at The Sewing Bee Cafe in Baxter. They offer a friendly and welcoming environment where you can shop for beautiful fabrics, patterns and haberdashery.

Come along to Bayside Brown Owls! It's all about having fun and hanging out with like-minded people who love everything crafty! All levels of crafters are welcome, even if you've never done anything crafty come along and have a go! There's sure to be someone who can help, encourage or inspire you!

Sew, crochet, knit, scrapbook... whatever you enjoy simply BYO crafty project! Tea & coffee will be provided along with a tutor to help you as needed.

EASTER FESTIVE FUN with the Brunswick Brown Owls

We are a festive lot here at the Brunswick Brown Owls, and we love to celebrate.

Purl Bee Bunnies found here

That's why we are popping our southern hemisphere autumnal festival bonnets on and 

hopping to do Easter crafts this Wednesday 9th April at the Sporting Club at 7pm. 

You're not into Easter? Yeah, I get it. 

Just bring your current crafty project and come and have a chat with us.

OR if you are into it, join me in making these gorgeous felt bunnies from the Purl Bee. 

You don't need much, just simple stash items that you've probably already got. If you're like me that is. I'll print out the template so we can all do it. 

Or you could join us at our Facebook group and we can share our great ideas virtually, 

but we'd love to see your gorgeous face!

We also have a fandabbydozee Easter Pinterest page 

you can add to or peruse for your crafty pleasure!

Would you love to learn about something else? 

Feel free to drop a line and get in contact at our fb page, so we can share together!

See you soon crafty lassies, Stacy

Reginald - the CAE Portrait Prize for Softies

It's Sue here - hi!

I used to be the conveynor for the Brown Owls Melbourne 3000 CBD group, which the lovely Lee Turnley now takes very good care of. We still meet at Madame Brussels with the next date being the 28th January, do hope we'll see you there.

The reason for me dropping by is this.

When I'm not Brown Owl'ing and naturopathing I work at CAE, organising the arts and crafts short courses. This all came about because of Brown Owls actually, but that's a story for another day!

This year at CAE we are holding a very fabulous competition 'Reginald - the CAE Portrait prize for Softies'.

Reginald is a competition in which we are inviting participants to make a Softie Portrait of someone they admire/appreciate and want to replicate in soft toy form. Once its made, they'll send us a photo of their Softie Portrait, together with a photo of the person/pet that the portrait represents. We are expecting to receive entries from professional makers (several amazing people and my creative heroes have indicated they will - brilliant!) as well as complete Softie making novices.

I am very excited to say that one of the judges is our very own Pip Lincolne - yippee! Along with Cat Rabbit, nationally and internationally revered soft sculpture/textile artist, they will select 10 finalists who will then send us their actual softie portraits for a fabulous exhibition, to be held in the CAE info shop in central Melbourne.

In honour of the bestest judges ever, I immortalised them in Softie Portrait form - look! that's lil pip and lil cat up there at the top there. They were SO much fun to make.

The competition is supported by frankie magazine and brother and there are some rather wonderful prizes to be won. There'll also be a prize voted by the general public, the peoples prize and a special frankie magazine prize voted for by frankie's creative director, Lara Burke.

Deadline for entries is 7th March 2014 and you can find out more information here and download full details of entry (including entry form) here. If Instagram is your thing you could follow us @reginald_cae and we're encouraging uploads of 'reggies-in-the-making' via #reginald and #makingareggie

I'm so excited about it I just had to share it with you. Maybe you'd like to make Softie Portraits in your Brown Owls groups. That would be great! I can't wait to see what everyone makes.

And I'm really really proud that Pip agreed to be part of Reginald - she's one top lady, yes indeed!

Happy Softie making wonderful Owls!

sue x

ALL HALLOWS EVE PUMPKIN CARVING with Allanagh, Wednesday, 23rd October 2013

Brunswick Brown Owls celebrate the festival ALL HALLOWS EVE this Wednesday! We will celebrate with carving a big old pumpkin. Never done it before? Me neither, but don’t worry, our champion pumpkin carver Allanagh will be sharing her experience and skills (I'll share my lino cutting tools with you). 

Come and join us, Wednesday 23^rd October at 7pm at the Sporting Club, Weston St, Brunswick, Victoria for a Halloween pumpkin carving fiesta! 

You'll need to pick up a pumpkin from a local grocer.

We may not live in the northern hemisphere, and we’re not preparing for the long winter ahead, but we love to celebrate all sorts of festivals! 

It's not just about American teen horror films, thankfully.

Image sourced: http://www.flickr.com/photos/richardmiller/1705678779/in/photostream

 Allanagh says:

Ok folks, the time to get your scare on is fast approaching! If you want to carve a pumpkin you should get your thinking cap on because as the old saying goes, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

From experience, it takes a lot longer than most people realise, so if possible, have your pumpkin already hollowed out (this can take between half to 1.5hrs depending on the size of your pumpkin).

The simplest designs are often the most successful, so you might want to print out a design. A good investment is a set of lino cutting tools with which to carve, is at http://www.silkcutlino.ashop.com.au/ and they have them with free delivery.

Check out our Halloween Pinterest page! http://www.pinterest.com/cailinbeag/all-hallows-eve/

If you’re not into pumpkins or sharp knives, feel free to bring your own crafty project and carry on with that, there will be lots happening in the fine Ladies Lounge.

We’d love you to come and say HIDEE HI to the Brunswick Brown Owls! If you can’t make it, we’ll pop up photos of the evening on our Brunswick Brown Owls Facebook page so you can join in the fun too.  We have over 170 members (no spambots luckily!), and you can be a part of our crafty community too! Come along and learn some new skills with us!

The Sporting Club still has delicious tapas and discounted cider jugs! Tasty. 

Bring your friends! We like your friends! We like you!

Hobart Brown Owls gather again - but what should we do?

Our little parliament of owls is meeting again in Taroona after skipping our last meeting.

We know this is a duck, but it's outside where we meet, so just pretend, OK?

The scheduled February meeting was (I think) our hottest day this summer, so we all went inside our little bird boxes and wilted (well, I did anyway...).

So far our group has been kind of feeling it's way a little bit - we have had 6 gatherings so far and we have been getting to know each other and working out when we can make it and what we do and what we make and all that jazz.  Now some of us were thinking it is time to get a bit of focus going for the group.

We already learn from each other - last time we met I learned that a machine I had decided should be invented, was already in existence (a yarn ball spinner thing...yes, I am a noob at some stuff...); but maybe now we take an idea from many other groups and do some team activity of some kind.  I am guessing charity, but who knows?  We have a pregnant owl, so perhaps our first team effort should be focused on the impending smallest one?  Or maybe we make some stuff to sell to buy other people sewing machines via kiva?  Or perhaps we make stuff to give directly to someone; in the Softies for Mirabel vein?  I know this is seasonal, but we might take a while to be organised :)  Or maybe something more locally inspired - such as the Alannah and Madeline foundation buddy bags.

Anyway - we meet, we talk, we decide.  Maybe.  Advice from other groups who have organised such efforts is most welcome!   Our group is here if you want to join us - looking forward to some crafty goodness on Saturday :)

Pretty Pin-Cushions for Pretty Sweet Peeps!

Brunswick Brown Owls make

Pretty Pin-Cushions with CASEY

The delightful CASEY, a Brunswick Brown Owl who is a master quilt maker (hand sewn, oh my goodness) and collector of gorgeous fabrics (and also works in the head office of an extremely large fabric and haberdashery and homewares franchise in Australia!) will be taking us through a workshop this Wednesday 29^th February at 7pm at the Sporting Club, Weston St., Brunswick, Victoria.

You will need:

1. Scraps of fabric in about 7 different designs

2. Template plastic

3. Sharp scissors

4. Needle

5. Thread

6. Embroidery thread to contrast with fabric

7. Hobby fill

8. Self cover button, approx. 2.5cm diameter

Welcome if you haven’t made it to the Brunswick Brown Owls for 2012! If you can’t make it, we’ll pop up photos (just like that of Casey's quilt below) of the evening on our Brunswick Brown Owls facebook page so you can watch the fun too. We have almost 100 members, and you can be a part of our crafty community too! Come along with some friends and learn some new skills with us!

The Sporting Club still has delicious tapas (4 for the price of 3, bargain!) and they even have discount price cocktails! Bonza! What a night!