BrisStyle Indie Twilight Market

Friday 24th August, 5-9pm
King George Square, Brisbane City

It's that time again - time for the BrisStyle Indie Twilight Market! But, this time, there's also an Etsy Party for you all to enjoy too.

I can't wait for the market. There's always a great atmosphere - happy customers, happy stallholders, and hopefully great weather!

I've made a few new project bags for this market. Here they are:

I've also been playing around with polymer clay. I've made some bananas! I'll make these into earrings when their varnish has dried, and they'll be available at the Twilight Market tomorrow night for $10 a pair.

What do you think? Very Queensland, right? :-)

Looking forward to seeing you there. Come by, say hello, and stay for the Etsy Party - it'll be a hoot!

Hand Dyed Yarn Shop Update

Over the past few weeks, The Quizzical Owl has attended several great events. I made sure that I had loads of hand dyed yarn available for these events.

It's sometimes a bit of a gamble to bring a specialised item to a general craft market. But, there are more and more knitters out there! Knitting is one of those hobbies that you can pick and at any time, and come back to even if you stopped a while ago. I love being able to introduce people to new yarns - other than those available at the larger craft chains. And yarns in unique colourways that they will be able to make lovely items from. It makes me happy to see my customers happily stroking the yarn, looking intently at the colours.

(And yes, I'm one of those knitters that sniffs skeins of yarns at knitting shows or in shops. There, I've said it.)

I've listed all the remaining skeins of hand dyed yarns on my website. You'll find a few on my Etsy shop as well.

Here are a few teasers to get you in the mood...

Happy knitting/crocheting/crafting!

Alex :-) 

Ambifair - The Event

Last weekend The Quizzical Owl attended Ambifair which was held in Ambiwerra Sports Ground and is the annual fundraiser for St Aidan’s Anglican Girls School.

 

 

 

 

The event was held on an absolutely gorgeous Brisbane Winter’s day. There was an excellent turnout for the event of which the highlights were a battle of the bands, some amazing dancing, a fashion platter competition and acrobatic demonstrations. 

 

 

 

With two people on the stall it is always enjoyable to be able to wander around and check out some of the events that are going on and the quality of the work that the students had put into their performances was certainly on show.

 

 

Having lived in London for 7 years, Scott was very excited to have found a pair of cufflinks with parts of the London Tube Map inside. The tube map is such an iconic image for anyone who has travelled and lived in London and it is always nice to find an unusual collectible to bring back some of those memories.

Ambifair

On Sunday 5th August The Quizzical Owl will be attending its next market in Brisbane.

This will be the first time that Ambifair has been held. Ambifair is being run by The Parents and Friends Association of St Aidan's Anglican Girls' School and will be held at Ambiwerra Sports Fields, 40 Erinvale Street, Corinda, Queensland, Australia 4075

Ambifair will comprise of over 50 market stalls offering high quality home grown organic produce, creative and original arts and crafts, skin care, jewellery and fashion.

We are very excited to be attending and will have our full range of Lego Jewellery, hand dyed yarn and project bags available.

Hopefully Scott and I will see you there.

Jumpers and Jazz - our weekend away

What a weekend!

Scott and I jumped in the car on Friday afternoon and headed down to Warwick about 4pm. We made great time, and arrived at our motel just after dark.

Warwick is a lovely town, with a lot of history. It's only a couple of hours drive from Brisbane, and well worth a visit.

We checked in to our motel, then had a bit of a drive through the town to get our bearings and find somewhere for dinner. We found ourselves at a lovely Chinese restaurant not far from the motel. The food was tasty! I had chicken in a local peach sauce, and Scott had a bird's nest. YUM! Of course, I can't resist reading menus and finding spelling errors. I don't know what it is about Asian restaurants, but they honestly have the best spelling/grammar errors. ;-) This restaurant's specialty was "Pork Bibs".

We had a slow start to Saturday - we ended up being awake really early (force of weekday habit I guess) and we watched a bit of the Olympic Opening Ceremony. We meandered down to the town centre and had a lovely brunch in a cafe. Then we wandered up and down the main street absorbing the atmosphere, and checking out all of the dressed/yarn-bombed trees.

The trees were amazing! The overall theme was Spice, and the variety among the trees was excellent. There were trees done by local school kids, by Girl Guides, local guilds, and enthusiasts from all over the place.

After wandering for a couple of hours, we hopped into the car and headed towards Stanthorpe. We found several lovely wineries, a cheese factory and even a cidery. We christened our new car on a very long dirt road (oops!), but the winery at the end of that road was totally worth the bumpy, dusty ride. At the cidery we had superb slice of apple pie. Then it was home to the motel for a reasonably early night.

Sunday we were up before the sun. It was freezing - literally!! The outside temperature according to the car was 0 degrees. Thank goodness for drive through coffee shops.

We set up our stall on frosty grass, and slowly thawed out during the day. We were thankful for the warm sunshine, that's for sure!

The crowds soon arrived and filled Leslie Park. We had a lovely day chatting to people about yarn, watching people enjoying themselves, and selling Lego jewellery to excited children (and adults!!). It is always fun to do markets, to be able to connect with people. Someone had remembered us from Supanova on the Gold Coast, and others mentioned that they go to the BrisStyle twilight markets.

We had a fun weekend. Thank you to Warwick for welcoming us! We will be back soon, I'm sure. Until then, here is a selection of photos from our trip. I've also uploaded a bunch more to my Flickr account.

Alex :-)

Jumpers & Jazz, Warwick

This weekend we are heading to Warwick. We are taking part in the culmination of the Jumpers & Jazz festival - Picnic in the Park. This event is the culmination of a week-long festival of music and arts.

And I can't wait!

I've heard a lot about the festival - and the yarn bombing. The trees in the main street are decorated with yarn and the entries come from all over the world.

On Sunday 29th of July, Picnic in the Park is happening in the centre of Warwick. Between 9am and 3pm, pop down to Leslie Park for and art and craft market.

We'll be there with Lego and Fimo jewellery, hand dyed yarn, project bags, stitch markers, Fyberspates Scrumptious yarns, and pattern books from Fyberspates and Ysolda.

See you there!!!

QSWFA Open Day

The Queensland Spinners, Weavers, and Fibre Artists have an Open Day every year. I was invited to have a stall by the lovely Vicki, who I met through Ravelry.

I was really excited about having a stall there, as I would be able to sell my Fyberspates yarn there, as well as the pattern books.  I am not able to sell these items at the BrisStyle markets (which are handmade only markets).

I dyed up a storm - I bought in new yarn from Mr Wool, bought new dye colours, and worked my magic. I was absolutely thrilled with the comments I received at the show about my dyeing technique and the colours I produced (that I was very talented, and had an excellent eye for colour). It's incredibly satisfying after creating new colourways, and presenting them to the public on a market stall, to have compliments on the items I have made. It's really rewarding. I already love what I do, but it's made that much more special when somebody at a market stall picks up something I have made and smiles.

We had a wonderfully successful day at the Open Day. We made the most of our stall space, which was along a fence outside the QSWFA's building in Auchenflower, Brisbane. I was really happy to be able to use my great-grandmother's suitcase to hold my Fyberspates yarn. I loved having a connection to her.

I'm now a member of QSWFA. Their next event in their Christmas Fair, which I'm really looking forward to. :-)

The Quizzical Owl enjoying the morning sunshine

Fyberspates yarn in my great-grandmother's suitcase <3

My hand-dyed yarns

The view down from our stall

The QSWFA's store - The Emporium. Yum!

Alex :-)