Fun in December with Melanie Testa

Posted on November 25, 2011 by Rice Freeman-Zachery

When Melanie told me she was going to do a boro project on her blog, I was all over it. I love boro style–go here to find out more about what it is. Go here to see what Melanie’s going to be doing. Go here to join the Flickr group.

[The jacket, above,is what she's going to be working on.You can work on anything, or you can just follow along and get ideas.]

Here’s what Melanie says about this fabulous project:

So what is Rockstar Boro, anyway? And do you have to be a rock star to join in?

Rockstar because I am going to stitch a velvet wrap that I can see Janis Joplin wanting to wear when it is finished. I also think the name will help me push the project well past the humble definition of boro and make it mag pie sparkly. You don’t have to be a rockstar to join, but you might like to embrace that part of you that has swagger, funk and the ability to belt ‘it’ out.

If someone wants to participate, what do they need to do? Is there a fee?

This is a sew along; my hope is that folks will come and check out my blog, comment, and join the Flickr group so that there is a central place to see what everyone is doing. This is not fee based, nor will it be instruction as much as commentary on process. I will link to the commenters work and try to draw them into the fun as much as possible. I will discuss what I am doing, some of the how of the approach and I will be looking for inspiration outside of my normal paths. I may embroider graffiti, I will photograph inspiration in my daily travels, I will highlight links like the Johnny Was that you turned me onto. On a very basic level, I want to get back into blogging and think this is a fun project to do it with that has an easy and approachable appeal for my readership. 

Another way that I think of embroidery is in a journal-like fashion. I love taking photos of logos, graffiti, and patterns. Embroidering these designs onto a project, see the boro bag on my site, helps me to remember dats, restaurants, graffiti, whatever I think up. So this will be a combo of embroidery and the simple stitch that is boro.
Originally I was thinking this would be a contemporary approach to boro stitch and cloth but when I started thinking about stitching and embroidery in a pink velvet wrap, I knew I needed to jazz the idea up a bit. Or.. rock it up, as the case might be.
This will be a sewing project. I use used paper previously:

Here are some example for ideas for things you might want to try:


P.S.–you can go here to listen to my podcast with Melanie where she talks about this year’s experience with breast cancer and its grueling treatment and–hooray!–writing her second book–all at the same time. And that video of her dancing in the aisle in Houston earlier this month? Here you go:

Ricë also blogs over at The Voodoo Cafe.

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