Saturday, October 20, 2007

Swap-O-Rama-Rama at Maker Faire

Passing on some info for an event I will be doing this weekend with the Austin Craft Mafia:

Austin's First SWAP-O-RAMA-RAMA is Here! http://www.swaporamarama.org @ Maker Faire http://www.makerfaire.com

Saturday October 20th 11am to 5pm & Sunday October 20th 11 to 4pm And A Recycled Fashion Show Saturday Eve from 5pm to 6pm

At the Travis County Expo Center, Austin TX

A ticket to Maker Faire plus any size bag of your unwanted clothes required to enter, leave with all the clothes you can carry plus learn to modify and make new from old. Save $ with Advance Tix: http://tinyurl.com/yolpga

"There is no beauty in the finest cloth if it makes hunger and unhappiness." Gandhi

Join in the communal process of reuse and celebrate our collective creativity! You are invited to Swap-O-Rama-Rama, a giant clothing swap and series of do-it-yourself workshops in which a community explores reuse and creativity through the recycling of used clothing. And while your there explore the massive creativity of Maker Faire celebrating art, engineering, science and the spirit of DIY.

It's easy to make the move from consumer to creator - and it's fun. At this Swap-O-Rama-Rama you'll find a host of talent brought together to teach you how to transform your new/used duds into works of your own.

Check out the extraordinary crew of artists and designers & the workshops being offered, which include local groups: Craft O Rama, Craft Mafia, Sublime Stitching, Goodwill, First Samples and Studio 3 as well as artists Zimka, Mary Keene, Andee Knutson and Gretchen Elsner. You'll find T shirt mods, conductive textiles workshops, silk screening, wool re-spinning and a whole lot more!

Together the creative reuse community of Austin bring you: DIY Stations where you can learn many wonderful ways to create out of textile reuse, Sewing Stations where local designers will teach you fresh clothing mod tricks, on site Silk Screeners with a host of original designs to refresh old duds and extraordinary local designers who'll show off their work in the Swap-O-Rama-Rama reuse fashion show MC'd by Jennifer Nordstrum.

Of course the core of the swap is the gigantic piles of free clothing (several thousand pounds!) sorted into categories: pants, shirts, skirts, sweaters etc. These piles are the collective total of each guest’s contribution of any size bag of unwanted clothes so clean out those closets and let go of what's no longer inspiring. Take home as much clothing as you can carry. Remainders go to Austin's Goodwill.

Wondering what to bring? Sewing machines are generously supplied by Janome Austin's Goodwill will be on site teaching DIY mods and offering their generous support.

See you there...