a Stitch in Design » Swaps

A suitcase full of new clothes

Nicole — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 15:41:45 +0000

There are very few things in this world that I love more than a pile of new clothes. Recently, I had the wonderful opportunity to volunteer at and participate in the Philly Swap o Rama Rama. It was my first time there and let me tell you – it was so much fun!

I volunteered at the Handmade Philly table at which we were making monster pins or collage pins. We were a kid friendly station and had sooo many creative people sit and chat with us throughout the day. And of course, periodically I’d meander to the swap tables and snag some sweet additions to my closet.

I saw less and less of the items I provided with each visit to the tables which made me a happy camper. And I seriously ended up swapping out all the fabric in my wheelie suitcase for clothing! I managed to complete all the alterations to make everything fit within a day or two which really made the whole experience worthwhile.

Thanks a million to Megan for putting the whole thing together! And I don’t know who got Urban Outfitters to open up their headquarters but it was AWESOME!! I wonder if there are any openings for accountants….

Photo credit: Allison Ostertag

New art for all

Nicole — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:28:01 +0000

Recently I organized an art swap, just because it’s always nice to have someone else’s art grace your walls. I love seeing everyone else’s point of view and am all about jumping on the swap bandwagon. Now if only I could get enough courage to join a quilt bee…

I’ll start by showing off the item I received. My inspiration word to Jen was infinity (as in the math symbol, not Buzz Lightyear ) and she came up with this fantastic piece of art! And just my luck, it’s in my fave colors of blue and silver!! She must’ve known.

My recipient was Heidi and her word was love. Talk about tough!! It means so many things to so many people and I tried not to be cliche – so here’s what I came up with (the fabric strip on the right is a piece of my mom’s wedding dress… Don’t tell!):

Heidi created this awesome collage for Tracy using bucolic as the inspiration word:

MaryJo put her embroidery skills to the test and chose to use Ruth’s band as inspiration instead of Ruth’s word – that’s what I like to call artistic license. Ruth was more than thrilled at the result:

To complete the circle, Jen received new art from Ruth, using “bridge” as inspiration:

I loved organizing this since it really wasn’t hard at all. Maybe that’s because there were only five swappers (obviously, not all photos were included here!). Either way, I received some sweet new art out of the deal and can only hope that everyone else enjoyed it as much as I did!