When was the last time you got something for free?

Can’t remember?

The Women’s Shed at Branxton has been totally free for six years now. That’s right. No joining or membership fee. No attendance fee. And you can attend three times a week!

We ask you to complete an information form for our records but that’s mostly for your wellbeing in case of an accident or medical emergency that we have someone we can phone.

And we ask you to show kindness, respect and support to all the other ladies at the shed. Behind every smile there might be a struggle we know nothing about, which is why we need to look out for one another.

Our Women’s Shed is an outreach program supported by the Branxton Uniting Church. We are a free community space for women of all ages, cultures and backgrounds. Whether you’re picking up a new skill, or simply looking for a connection, there’s a place for you here.

We believe strong women support other women. You never really know what someone else is carrying – so we’ve created a space to gather, create and look out for one another, no matter where you’re at in life.

We meet Tuesdays 9:30am, Tuesday 6:30pm and Thursdays 9:30am. Everyone is welcome.

Look at the Shed now! No way would I have believed that we would be where we are now when we started. In 6 years have three Shed sessions with so many ladies who attend every week, some who come when they can and some who have moved on but have remained lifelong friends.

That’s the beauty of the Shed! It serves the purpose that you want it to.

You may want to learn a craft skill and then after a few weeks you can move on.

You may be looking for connection to community and find your new best friends that now you lunch with them every week at some of our many local cafes and wineries.

You may be looking for how you can contribute to our many community projects and find yourself committing to making endless Boomerang Bags.

You may turn up for a chat and end up sorting buttons.

We are very grateful for all the ladies who pass through our door for so many different reasons and hope that we have provided for you something that you were looking for or didn’t even know you were looking for.

As you know, the Women’s Shed is an outreach program run by the Branxton Uniting Church. While so much that has happened was never really planned from the beginning, but that’s the beauty. The need was there and we feel blessed to be able to provide it.

xoxo, Karen

since there’s been any blogging on this page but rest assured the Women’s Shed Branxton is alive and well.

All posts have been on Facebook while our website has gone by the wayside.

We had one of our members kindly donate a brand-new Janome embroidery machine and Lynn visited us to provide some information about how we can use it. Lyn is a wealth and knowledge and has been embroidering on machine for many years. We are very grateful to have her support us.

Some of our ladies at the Women’s Shed like to make things to donate to others. A few ladies made beanies and scarves for the students in the special ed unit at Rutherford High School, but Ingrid went above and beyond went she showed us a table full of knitwear she had made over a three-week period, ready to be donated. We certainly have some kindhearted ladies.

Our first attempt at tye dyeing and we coloured our aprons. Esther cut out and made four white aprons, then Kay, Annette and I tied on all the elastics bands. Together, we used the equipment that we purchased through the Octapod Grant to create brightly coloured aprons to wear for our High Tea Luncheon.

You’ll notice a shopping bag in there too. We dyed it first to see how it went. It’s all about elastic band placement!

I wonder what we’ll tye dye next?

Our macrame experts have now been making decorative hat holders. They are the perfect solution for where to store you Akubra or straw sun hat without crushing and damaging them in a cupboard or on a shelf. They also look so beautiful you could mistake them as a piece of wall art.

They are very popular in mobile homes and caravans as your hat is less likely to fall off a hook while travelling in one of these holders.

They are making doubles that hold two hats and singles that hold just one and selling them in our Shed Shop. Come and see them on Thursday from 9:30am. I am sure the first to see them will buy them and there are only a few in stock.

We are often asked if we can make something special. This week we have been doing just that. Hanging towels are one of our best sellers and we recently sold out of our all our black ones. They are very popular for garages, workshops and male bathrooms. So we made five more this week for a customer.

We had another customer who asked us if we could make old fashioned jug covers, you know, the ones that look like round crocheted doilies with beads around the edge. We said, “Why not?”. Two have clear glass beads, one has coloured glass beads and one has coloured stone beads. We are looking to make more of these but find it hard to source nice glass beads. So if anyone has any hiding away in a cupboard, we are very grateful for donations.

Someone else asked us about a macrame hat holder. So out came Youtube for instructions and away we went. Notice how the wool spinner has now become a place to hold the macrame. We haven’t mastered the art of wool spinning just yet!