Swap-O-Rama-Rama!

I had the wondrous experience of attending a Swap-O-Rama-Rama over the weekend. For the unitiated, this is the brainchild of Wendy Tremayne, and they’re being organized in cities all over.

Swap-O-Rama-Rama is a creative exploration of re-use. You arrive with some old clothes you want to get rid of. Then you rummage through the piles of clothes everyone else brought, and pick out some treasures. And then, best of all, there are sewing machines, project stations, and Crafty Mavens on hand to help you alter, embellish or otherwise transform your new finds.

The Portland event was held at the lovely 100th Monkey Studio, which is a community art space where people can take classes or use the studio space to make their own art. A great venue for this kind of event!

 

You can see that an enormous amount of clothing walked in the door. I kid you not: the piles were waist-high at times. The donation room was packed with people, digging in like excited four-year-olds. Everyone seemed to find things they loved.

 

. . . But let’s get to the good part — the crafting! The stencil station was hopping all day. There were always lots of newly-painted garments drying.

This is an old shirt of mine, that had been hanging around in my closet forever. I was so happy to see someone take it, and transform it with these awesome bird stencils. That shirt has never looked better! In fact, it was the coolest thing to see my cast-offs be picked up and transformed by others.

The sewing stations were also hopping. Some people altered their own, and some people asked the hardworking volunteer Crafty Mavens to help them out.

These two highly-creative ladies collaborated on this wonderful bag, the strap of which is an old belt! (Lynda, on the right, was responsible for all the donated sewing machines from our local Montavilla Sewing Center.)

Here’s a bit of an old prom dress, in the process of being transformed into a gorgeous jacket.

 

. . . And then, there was needle-felting! Jen was the Crafty Maven for this, and she helped people felt wool and yarn embellishments onto their garments. She was also doing the most wonderful things with the cuffs she’d cut from old sweaters, felting things to them to make cuff bracelets. How flippin’ cool is that?

Julie, who produces one of my favorite podcasts ever, was there too, recording interviews. Her show is called DIY Portland, and it looks at a different aspect of DIY culture in the city each month. Self-publishing, open-source software, indie music production – it’s fascinating. You can listen in here.

Whew! So much fun! If there’s a Swap-O-Rama-Rama in your city this year, I cannot recommend it enough. (Or, maybe you’d like to organize one.) Speaking of which, big, huge thanks to Julie, Erika, Irene, Beth Ann, and Joy, who did an amazing job organizing this one!