Femme Shed Craft Group members Trish Kelly and Dianne Bourne, who sell crafts to raise funds for those in need. Photo: Kellie O’Brien.
In a garage in Warilla, a group of 10 retired women are using yarn, fabric and creative skill to stitch together a safety net for people doing it tough in the community.
Femme Shed Craft Group was founded by Dianne Bourne eight years ago for members to use their craft skills to hand make and sell practical items to raise funds for people in need across the region.
Dianne said it was something they had been “doing quietly”, purely driven by a need to help others.
“The funding that we raise helps people in need in the Illawarra, either through food donations through one of the community centres, helping children out with school uniforms and we’ve supplied a couple of computers to children in the schools,” Dianne said.
“We’ve also worked through Southern Youth and Family Services and they’ve given us many opportunities to be able to help them out.”
She said sometimes their work had stretched beyond the Illawarra, having donated bags to patients in a dialysis unit in a remote Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory.
“We’re pretty diverse in what we do, but it’s all very rewarding for us,” she said.
Dianne said through knitting, sewing or crochet, they made everything from microwave bowl holders, crocheted tops for tea towels and hand towels through to gift items, clothes, rugs, teddies, and all manner of bags.
“It’s something I started eight years ago. I had so much material that had been donated to me, because people knew I sewed,” she said.
“We were making skirts and shorts and all sorts of things for the [charity] ShoeBox.
“I think it was something like 80 skirts and 60 shorts later that we said, ‘Why are we doing this for people overseas? We’ve got people here who need it’.
“The theory was, charity begins at home.”
She said originally the idea was to simply do crafts at home and then come together to find opportunities to sell them to raise funds, but more recently the women had been meeting monthly to craft together.
“My garage is the Femme Shed Craft Group; there’s a tiny bit allowed for a lawn mower,” she said, laughing.
“We’ve started meeting monthly and it allows us to keep in touch with each other … and come up with different ideas of what we’re doing.”
She said while they had been working on Easter products, their attention was now turning to winter woolies, Mother’s Day gifts and making kids aprons, with paintbrushes and notepads included.
Dianne said the focus wasn’t on attracting members, but rather encouraging people to either donate high-quality craft goods to sell or purchase the products to help raise funds.
She said they had been given permanent counter spaces at Southern Youth and Family Services in Warilla and Beachcombers Haircare in Shellharbour Village to sell their goods and a weekly table at the Shellharbour City U3A (University of the Third Age) on Tuesdays.
“It’s worked out well for us, but it works out well for people too because we’re very reasonably priced,” she said.
“And I won’t allow anything that’s not a good quality to go out to sell.”
To donate high-quality crafts to the Femme Shed Craft Group to sell, email Dianne on [email protected] or visit Beachcombers Hair in Shellharbour Village or Southern Youth and Family Services in Warilla to purchase products.
