Swap-O-Rama-Rama

Type: Workshop
Program Area: Craft

Day/Time: Saturday and Sunday 12:00 PM

Location: Redwood Hall

SWAP-O-RAMA-RAMA
Earth Day, Saturday April 22nd (12 to 4) & Sunday April 23rd (12-5) 
With a Recycled Fashion Show Saturday @ 5pm 
Bring $5 and a bag of your unwanted clothes ($10 w/o clothes), all workshop and DIY materials are provided 
Located in Redwood Hall 

OVER PACK for Maker Faire! 
It’s time to clean out your closet and get rid of those unloved items to get ready for Swap-O-Rama-Rama @ Maker Faire!  Dig out the clothes you bought thinking “I’ll fit into it one day,” the gifts that made you wonder how well your aunt Marilyn really knows you and the stuff your hanging on to thinking it may come back into fashion. Let it go!  At Swap-O-Rama-Rama you will trade your unloved items in for over 5,000 lbs of 'new to you' clothing that you'll transform through the communal process of reuse. 

Once you’ve picked your new favorite duds from the massive swap piles, you are invited to take back creativity from industry... bring your finds over to the DIY stations where you can learn to create new from old. Start off at the Stitch Lounge where you can work one-on-one with the San Francisco area's best re-use clothing designers and modify your finds into something new and special or do on-site tailoring. Sewing machines and all the accouterments are all supplied. Explore a mass of bows, buttons, decals, trim patches and other notions at the decoration stations where local artists will show you how to embroider, knit and have an all around great time doing hand sewn mods including jewelry making with recycled materials. You may also enjoy silk screening images on your new threads. At the silk screen area you'll screen fresh designs from the most innovative urban artists of northern California ready to screen them  onto your duds. 

To learn truly unique, obscure and unusual clothing modification skill, the workshop area of Swap-O-Rama-Rama offers a different artist taught workshop each half hour. Here you can learn and gets hands on, with the help of an artist who is willing to share their mastery with you. These range from techie to tactile, hello kitty cute to dark and dramatic. 

Stay into the evening and you'll be invited to the DIY fashion show. First on the runway will be the San Francisco area's most edgy re-use designers, these are the designers who you've been working with all day at the swap's Stitch Lounge. They'll take the runway and show you the creations that currently fill their boutiques. Then its your turn! You'll be welcome to join in the “Do It At the Swap” fashion show where you are invited to show off the items you modified earlier in the day.

What to bring?Bring: Clothes in season: jackets, wallets, hats, pants,shirts, skirts, shoes, gloves, belts, accessories, jewelry, sunglasses, bags, costumes, lingere, pjs etc. Only clothes please! What not to bring: books, bikes, vases, lamps etc... If you cant wear it, dont bring it!  Quantity is not important. Come with a little or a lot, whatever you got.

Swap-O-Rama-Rama is for boys, girls, men, women.

All left over clothing is donated to charity.

The swap's Stitch Lounge is named after San Francisco's own Stitch Lounge, a sewing lounge where you can learn, sew and socialize, a location for the modern sewing circle with all the sewing equipment you need.  Check out http://www.stitchlounge.com/ for more info. 

RIDE SHARE TO SWAP-O-RAMA-RAMA @ Maker Faire: http://www.burningman.com/calendar/yearround/edit_ride_share.php?id=1998&date=20060422

Related site: http://swaporamarama.org/makerfaire.htm

Presenters

Wendy Treymane