Boomerang Bags

Sewing at home and Sewing Bees

Anyone is welcome to sew bags, or organise a get together to sew bags with friends and community groups. Please feel free to use our ‘Boomerang Bags Bright’ Facebook page to communicate with each other and organise sewing bees at times and locations that suit you.

The group now has a small dedicated space in the Bright Community Centre, the space affectionately referred to as the “Boom Room” is where we gather to make bags and conduct workshops that help contribute to the positive effects of the wider Boomerang Bags Movement.

Alternately we will host a drop in session every second Saturday for the remainder of 2019 1pm -5pm in the boom room to help you get started. We update our facebook page and local community notice boards around town each month to remind you and let you know where we are gathering.

There are a number of ways you can be involved in sewing at home with out attending sewing bees. Our friends at Sew Bright, Harrietville Bakery & Bright Library have baskets of take home and sew packs with some basic instructions that we try and keep stocked, please feel free to call in and grab a pack and sew away…. Or if you have fabric to donate, what better way to donate it than as a completed bag, we have a basic pattern available in our Facebook photo library to help get you underway!

Have fabric or sewing accessories to donate?

We’re keen to develop a stock of materials (fabric and thread). All donations are welcome, and can be dropped off at one of our collection points (see list below)

Clean Cotton fabrics are best & remember the aim of the game is repurposing and re-using, so cotton bedding, old tablecloths, hessian or horse feedbags and large fabric remnants are ideal.

Are you wanting to involve your school or community group in a sewing bee?

If you are involved with a community/school group that would like to take part in a sewing bee drop us a line we have made some great user friendly patterns and pre cut bag packs made up that will make the process easier for you. Happy sewing!

Pockets for bags

We regularly print pockets and happily share them at sewing bees, but do not send them out in take home and sew packs. Of every 100 bags that we put out as take home and sew packs we get around 60 back. Pockets are both labour intensive and costly to create so we tend to only share them with known sewists. If you have a bag that you have sewn and would like it back to use, please pop a message in in the bag when returning it to the drop off point and we will endeavour to get it back to you. Alternatively drop us a line or call into a sewing bee and we will happily share some pockets with you.

Drop off points for made up bags & fabric donations

Our kind friends listed below have allowed us to use their business as a drop off location for fabric donations and completed bags.

Bright Library                          14 Ireland Street, Bright

Sew Bright Alpine Quilting      4 Ireland Street, Bright

Harrietville Bakery                  Great Alpine Road Harrietville

It you have large or unusual fabric donations please make contact with us, we would be happy to have a chat about it.

For more information on Boomerang Bags Bright & Townships, check us out on Facebook, give us a call on 0403 688 306 or drop us an email to boomerangbagsbright@gmail.com

We’d love to help you get Boomerang Bags in your business. Please contact us to work out a plan.

• You can find community bags hanging around in the following locations
• Food Wine & Friends – 6 Ireland Street, Bright
• Bright Library – 14 Ireland Street, Bright
• Porepunkah Community Op Shop – Station Street Porepunkah
• Harrietville Bakery – Great Alpine Road Harrietville
• Sixpence Coffee & Pocket Full of Rye Sourdough Bakery – Churchhill Avenue Bright

Boomerang Bags aims to tackle waste at its source, creating conversations about the issue and providing hands-on solutions, as well as opportunities to connect with each other, learn new skills, start important conversations and raise much needed awareness.

Boomerang Bags Bright & Townships was established in 2017 to enable community action to reduce the use of both single use plastic’s & bags in the townships of Bright, Harrietville, Porepunkah, Wandiligong & Freeburg. The group has been involved in a range of community events such as Wandiligong’s This little Harvest Festival, Environmental action movie nights & the Bright Gala Day parade.

At the time of inception the group were supported strongly by the Bright P-12 College who were instrumental in giving us a place to meet & sew and store fabrics and projects. The support of the school enabled helped us to receive and deliver grant funding to start community conversations round the use of single use plastics.  We were able to show our thanks for their valued support by engaging Anthony Hill from Plastic Pollution Solutions to present a plastic awareness talk to the P-12 Students on 2 occasions using money raised from bag sales and end of term luncheon donations.

With an ever growing bag tally the Bright & townships group has made more than 1400 reusable shopping bags, bread bags & vegetable/produce bags. The main aim of the group’s efforts is to provide the man power to make products using donated or waste products that can be sewn to be given a new life,  reduce the consumption single use plastics and have a positive effect towards reducing plastics heading to landfill in our pristine alpine environment.

“It’s not about what it is, it’s about what it can become.”  ― Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

A byproduct of this group's actions is the multitude of conversations around the reduction of plastic waste that have been had over sewing machines and on footpaths in communities around the Ovens Valley and the world.  Not to be underestimated is the positive mental health effect of gathering learn new skills by participating in positive actions that affect our immediate community.

We sew two styles of bags; the tags on bags explain their differences.