Brunswick Brown Owl WASH CLOTHS, we're not washing cloths, we're MAKING wash cloths!

Hello poppets!

It's that time of the year when we hunker down (do we hunker up in summer?) and cozy on in while the rain and wind and fog and mist envelop us in her cloudy embrace. These are the perfect conditions for crafting up a veritable storm, and for the quacking ducks.

Free patterns available here on Ravelry by Kate Alvis (all images by Kate Alvis).

So to keep the craft up, we'll be learning how to make WASH CLOTHS next Brunswick Brown Owl meet on Wednesday 2^nd July at 7pm at the Sporting Club, Weston St, Brunswick. Put it on your calendar! You can come meet Louis, the charming new bearded bar manager too!

What are these washing things I speak of, I hear you ask?

Well, they are beautiful knitted OR crocheted cloths (ONE STICK OR TWO! CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON!) that you can use to wash your pretty face, or you can wash your dishes with! You probably don't want to be rubbing any pans up with a beautiful organic bamboo cloth, but a crafty friend of ours had used cotton kitchen twine to crochet and she hardly needs a scourer! How's that?! 

SOOOOO, bring your choice of stick/s and yarn (your ball of yarn should give you good instructions on what is the best size) or check the web for patterns of your liking. We have a Pinterest page where you can add your own designs or fave cloths, or peruse some of the gorgeous patterns.

SO! If you have some gorgeous wash cloths at home and can show them off, bring them in! If you have some knitting or crochet skills you can share, bring them in! If you need some particular sized sticks or yarn, let us know, we’re pretty handy like that, and we’re very good at sharing! Let us know on the Brunswick Brown Owl Facebook page. You can also keep updated on the Brown Owl Blog member page, there is an email subscriber thingy there too. 

As usual, it’s free to come and our masters of craft are always on hand to give you a hand! Do you need a hand? Can you give a hand? Please do! Can’t be bothered starting a new project but want to come and craft and chat anyway? DO THAT TOO! We meet every Wednesday fortnight. If you’ve been hibernating and you’re ready to have a mulled wine, come do that too! We love that kinda thing. See you next week, in the name of craft! Stacy.

Reginald voting - come and join in

Hi there

A couple of months ago I told you all about a project I'm co-ordinating called Reginald - the CAE Portrait Prize for Softies. Take a look at the original post here if you'd like to be reminded.

So far it has been an amazing success. I've been completely overwhelmed by the response and the skill and thought that the 63 makers have displayed in their entries.

Our wonderful Pip Lincolne, one of the Reginald judges, assisted in selecting twelve finalists which represent pure crafting excellence.

Head over to the Reginald website to see the work of the twelve finalists, I'd encourage you to vote for your favourite finalist and help select the People's Prize winner. One randomly chosen voter will win a special Reginald prize pack, including a signed copy of one of Pip's books and a frankie magazine subscription. Yippee!

If you're in Melbourne you can come and see the Reginald Exhibition at the CAE Info Shop, 44 Degraves Street (cnr Flinders Lane), until 14 April. More info here.

Thanks for listening.

Happy Reginald!

Warm Regards

Sue (former Conveynor of Brown Owls Melbourne 3000 CBD group)

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

Brown Owls Melbourne 3000, didnt we have a lovely time

Last night was our first meet. It went jolly well. There were 23 lovely gals and one super bloke regaling in the splendour of the venue that was the Parlour room at Madame Brussels.



There was stitching, knitting, pippy slippering, crochet, hexagons, buttons and quite a lot of chatting and generally very good super sharing-ness.



Thanks very much to Tanya crochet teacher - look what can be achieved in just one evening, complete novice to granny squarer extraordinaire:

Some tennis outfit clad peeps served us toasties, fine cheese, wine, champagne and some lovely tea, from a proper pot, appropriately beclad in knitted tea cosy (the pot was the only thing proper about it, i found out late in the evening that that tea was undercover - and i dont mean just cosy under its knitted cosy - it was cheekily actually hot toddy - sneaky!)

And look, this is me and my first ever Brown Owl buddy Shannon.

A lovely time had by all.

Next meet details will be announced tomorrow, get ready to RSVP! Look forward to seeing you soon.

Brown Owls Melbourne 3000, tomorrow night!

hoorah - only one more sleep to go! If you've RSVP'd already to the inaugural meet of the Brown Owls Melbourne 3000 group, see you tomorrow night.

at: Parlour room, Madame Brussels, level 3, 59-63 Bourke St, Melbourne 3000 (entrance to the left of 'The Spaghetti Tree' restaurant, and then lifts to level 3)
at: 6.30 - 9pm
bring: a craft project (or if Omlair Tanya is teaching you to crochet then bring a 4mm hook and 8 ply wool) and, if you like, a few dollars to partake in a beverage or delicious menu item, as way of a thankyou to the Madame Brussel'ers for allowing us to use the Parlour (which will also handily ensure that your tastebuds are also firmly along for the party).

Looking forward to seeing you.

sue

ps. to all those that havent already RSVP'd, sorry! this event is now full, look forward to seeing you at the next one.

Leading the felt revolution

Brown Owls Mongolia have been felting again. Yes, again. We love it. So does Mongolia.

Lots of people live in it, others wear it. And you can get your wool from a whole bunch of animals: goats, camels, sheep, yaks (animals are a *big deal* in Mongolia, I don't know in which other countries the annual national livestock census makes national headlines). So here we are, crafting the felt dream ... check it out.

Welcome Owls!

Hi Owls!

This is the Brown Owl's Members Blog! Hurrah! It's a multi-author blog for our crafty peeps! In the coming weeks we'll be choosing a few members to be in charge of posting stuff over here.

If you have something to post - you can email your ideas/text to one of the Brown Owl's Prefects (who will be listed in the side-bar) - and they'll happily upload your news or photos or whatever you like for you!

We'll be making sure that our interstate members get a BIG look in over here - as well as our internationals. Because Brown Owls is for crafty people everywhere! And we all want to know about you and what you're doing, right?!

I'll be introducing you to our Brown Owl's Prefects over the next month or two on the Brown Owls Blog

xx Pip