We often have people asking us for a weekend version of our Women in the Shed program, and here is a super taster for anyone wanting a gentle and practical introduction to working with timber! Lovely local artist Jane Hausseger is running our upcoming Recycled Timber Design Workshop next weekend on Saturday 6 May from 10am-12pm.

Jane will teach you how to make coffee paddles - small chopping boards - that can be used to serve food or coffee and would make lovely handmade gifts. In the workshop you will learn about selecting recycled timber, cutting, sanding and then dressing the timber with products that are suitable for food use.

It is a great introduction to recycling timber and you will walk away with a lovely product at the end. You can book in here. There are still two places available. So book in and come along.

Join Annie here on Saturday 13 May from 2-4pm. With supportive funding from City of Yarra her Pillow Talk workshop costs only $20 and is suitable for families, teenagers and adults of all ages. In the workshop you will learn all about dyeing onto recycled cotton fabric (sourced from pillows) and have fun dipping, bashing, rolling and steaming colours. You’ll also learn a bit about how the pillow production and waste stream works. Sounds super interesting right? You can book in here.

If you came along to the Alphington Open Studios in December last year you would have seen some beautiful timber chopping boards in the gallery.

Lovely local artist Jane Hausseger has offered to share her skills and knowledge about working with timber in our upcoming Recycled Timber Design Workshop running on 6 May from 10am-12pm, here at ACC in the Community Shed.

Jane will teach you how to make coffee paddles - small chopping boards - that can be used to serve food or coffee and would make lovely handmade gifts. In the workshop you will learn about selecting recycled timber, cutting, sanding and dressing the timber with products that are suitable for food use.

It is a great introduction to recycling timber and you will walk away with a lovely product at the end. You can book in here.

Coming up in May, we have another really interesting workshop called Pillow Talk, led by local artist Annie Bolitho running here at ACC. This workshop has a strong sustainability theme and is supported with a sustainability grant from the City of Yarra.

Annie is creatively working to find a second life for the cotton fabric that covers pillows.

So … if you have:

• pillows that have reached the end of their usable life, and/or

• an interest in learning how to go about eco-dyeing and/or

• an interest in reducing landfill

this workshop is for you!

Join Annie here on at ACC in the Community Shed on Saturday 13 May from 2-4pm. With supportive funding from City of Yarra this workshop costs only $20 and is suitable for tweens, teenagers and adults (it would be a good one to do as a family). Have fun dipping, bashing, rolling and steaming colours. And learn how the pillow production and waste stream works. Book in here.

On Wednesday we were just sitting down to lunch when we had an unexpected visitor. Professor Kyall Zenger from James Cook University popped in and asked if he could look in our compost bins in his search for black soldier fly larvae. We said yes, and then went about interrogating him about all the things!

So …he is currently going around Australia collecting samples to map the variety of black soldier flies that have made there way to various parts of the country … and doing genetic testing on them. Why we asked? He is looking into using insects for sustainable agriculture and aquaculture food production - and black soldier flies have both a short lifespan and are very high in protein. So he is testing to find the best flies (I assume this means the ones that are both the biggest and highest in protein, in the shortest lifecycle).

He was telling us that they have already started mass production of the black soldier fly for aquaculture food. And explained that insects are a much more sustainable food/protein source for fish than other fish (what with overfishing etc.). How interesting right?

We’ll look forward to following the outcome of his research … and perhaps, just perhaps our compost bins could be the source of THE BEST BLACK SOLDIER FLY IN AUSTRALIA … and ACC could become FAMOUS in this new endeavour.