A creative home away from home

We started as a charity that sews. We ended up as somewhere people come to be, and the sewing is what gives them a reason.

How it happened

Sewing for Charity Australia started in 2015 with a handful of people making things for people who needed them. It grew fast, and it grew a problem: donated fabric arrived faster than volunteers could sew it.

The Sewing Lair was the answer. A shop for the surplus, priced so anyone could afford it, with the money going back into the charity. Then people started staying. They’d come for a metre of cotton and end up at the table with a cuppa, and somebody would show them how to thread an overlocker, and they’d come back on Thursday.

That’s the actual business now. The shop pays for a room where people who’d otherwise be on their own have somewhere to go.

What we believe, briefly

Everybody's welcome, and we mean everybody

Any age, any background, any skill level, any reason for being here. You don't need to buy anything, join anything or be good at anything.

Nothing usable gets wasted

Fabric that would have gone to landfill becomes a kid's first project or a blanket for someone in hospital.

Cheap on purpose

Craft has got expensive. We price so that a pensioner and a teenager can both walk out with an armful.

How we got here

2015
Sewing for Charity Australia begins
A small group making comfort items for hospitals and refuges. Word gets around. Donations start arriving.
2020
The Beenleigh Lair opens
Somewhere to put the surplus, and somewhere for volunteers to work. The classroom goes in almost immediately because people keep asking.
2024
Moorooka opens
A second shop on the southside, so people don't have to drive to Logan.
2025
The Meadowbrook warehouse
Space to take whole-room donations and estates without burying the shops.
Now
Five days a week of something
Classes, coffee mornings, knit & natters, school holidays, market stalls, and a shop with nearly three thousand one-off things in it.

The charity half

The Sewing Lair is the social enterprise of Sewing for Charity Australia Ltd. Same people, same building, two jobs: the charity makes and gives, the Lair sells and teaches, and each one funds the other.

Visit Sewing for Charity