Busy year.

Jewellery work

I've been learning to dance ATS® belly dance. As a queer-gender person, I'm not overly fond of the coin bras, so I'd been thinking about another way to 'bling up' the choli. My mind had been mulling over it for probably a year or so; before I saw Kae's choli decos. I have done jewellery work off-and-on since I was a child. I come back to it at various intervals as another of my creative expressions. So when I saw one of Kae's choli decos worn by Jesse, at a dance residential, I thought 'I could do something like that'. When I saw Jesse's choli deco, I had no idea about Kae's choli decos.

Anyway, fast forward a few months. I had a Hafla we were performing at; I created this 24hrs or so before the performance. I wanted to come up with my own idea and my own method of execution, so while Kae's choli deco is an inspiration, I tried to go my own way, so I wouldn't be plagiarising her work.

I had all these chains, bits and bobs and decided, it's time to start using them. I did the performance without the two coins on the front. The back is a little too heavy for the front, even with the big circle piece, so I added the two coins to add a little more weight to the front. I've danced in classes whilst wearing it, it's still too heavy in the back, so I may end up removing the long kuchi piece and replacing it with something else. Overall, I'm very pleased with my creation.

Oh, and people are telling me I should create more of these, I might, if I can get more chain... that's my difficulty, is finding different costume jewellery chains in 2m lengths that don't look tacky or excessively cheap. I'll make more of these choli chains, if people want to supply me little bits and bobs to decorate their choli chains. My supply of objects is limited. The little gilet silver poppy seed heads are one of those limited items; I don't have anymore of them. If someone has kuchi bits and bobs they want repurposed, I'll try to use those in a design. I still have several of the tiny Chinese luck/felicity tokens, so those are an option I can use in other choli chain designs.

Again, I would find my own way to do these, I will not copy Kae's designs.

Choli Chain Front

Choli Chain Back

I might replace the current kuchi piece on the back with this:

Lapis and silver asyk pendant

Sewing

I've also done some sewing; in the past week, I've started on two pairs of pantaloons and I've finished one pair. I realise I need to tweak some of my process for the pantaloons as well, so the second pair is 'on hold' until I have more thinking done.

Olive crepe back satin pantaloons

I used the official FCBD® Folkwear® pattern as my guide/direction for making the 'loons, with a few of my ideas. Tuesday night, I finished the olive 'loons and got to dance in class with them. No serious issues, though they're quite long and drape over my feet; I need to open the waistband and remove about 5-10cm from the elastic, as the waistband is looser than I thought. I'm otherwise satisfied with my first pair of handmade 'loons.

Second pair of 'loons in progress

Close up of the wrong side of the 'loon fabric; it's very shiny and slippery.

I'm very much looking forward to finishing the second pair of 'loons, I rather like the pattern printed on the fabric. I think instead of gathering to the waistband this time, I'm going to try pleating. This crepe satin is as thin, or thinner, than the olive green fabric. Like the olive fabric, it frays like mad. I'm so glad I have the overlocker to control the raw edges. I may have to curve the bottom half of the legs, as trying to cram 45" wide fabric around a 7" ankle is difficult.

Hair Gardens

Right now is the season to get hair flowers from the shops such as Claire's. It's late Spring/early Summer here, so there is a huge assortment of colours and flower-types.

Flower hoard from Claire's.

I was overjoyed to see large sunflower and daisy hair flowers; a year or three or more ago, I bought two small sunflower clips. I did buy another two small ones, as well as the larger ones. I went back and bought more hair flowers, so now I should be set for the next several years of dancing. "Hair gardens" are typical of ATS® costuming.

Dancing in a park.

This is me, dancing for a photo shoot. Banjara skirt atop two 25yd tiered skirts; and a black velvet and lace choli. I have some vintage tassels tied to my plain black headband. I did the shoot before I made the choli chain.

Bobbin Lace 

I did say it's been a busy year. The lace butterfly is the 2013-2014 Easter class project. My tallies are still ropy -.-

Butterfly in bobbin lace.

I'll try to update/blog a little more frequently. I'm mostly writing and focusing on lace, dance, lace, dance... oh and I just started learning British Sign Language.

More about those summer fabrics and alterations of new clothes

Alright, here's a better image of the orange-yellow seersucker, it's actually got cerise in it as well, which is clearly visible in this shot. It's still cheerful and I think it'd be great turned into a skirt, shorts or pantaloons.

A better representation of the flower-sun turquoise batik. I'd like to find something suitable for this that makes use of the flower-suns that is still clothing-tied. I just had the idea of putting it on the back of a waistcoat and maybe highlighting the pattern with selective machine stitching... hmm.

As to the turquoise seersucker, it's washed, it's dried and the colour value hasn't changed to any noticeable degree. Course, I did wash it in cold water instead of 30C temps.

Below are two new items that arrived today from Nepal and elsewhere via the USA. The first one is an A-line skirt and I'd hate to see what their smaller sizes are like because the XL is more like an XS. I'm going to have to unpick the stitching at either side of the hips, remove the useless elastic and install two tapes at the waistband and then sew the side seams into Y rather than sewing them together because there's no way I can get the skirt over my hips. Pity, it's a lovely and very colourful and playful skirt. It's also very long, if I could get it over my hips, it's nearly floor length.

The patchwork wrap-around skirt (not pictured) arrived with it and fits just fine, it's almost ankle-length and I'm looking forward to wearing it.

Below is the shawl that came with it and has the lovely machine-embroidery with cup sequins add sparkle to it. I bought the shawl with the intent to use it for belly dance or general clothing spruce up. Most shawls you can use for a neck scarf, but this one? It'd be a shame to hide the wonderful decoration on it, so, shawl or hip scarf will be its destiny.

Summer cottons are like candy...

Carrying on from my previous post... here are better images of the fabrics (shot with a dSLR and near an open window)... though I failed again because I forgot the flower-sun turquoise batik fabric and the orange seersucker that is an almost exact weave of the turquoise seersucker below (it's in the wash... because I wash all my cotton fabrics before use).

First up, the spicy red stripe on the left and the complimenting(?) poplin on the right. I am thinking of using these two together in a tiered skirt. What do you think? I have about four metres of each and want to retain or use the vertical/warp stripe to best advantage. Both fabrics are lightweight and soft handle.

The turquoise and cream seersucker: destined to go into a pair of Simplicity shorts as there's only two metres of this one. The orange version is four metres orange and yellow with cerise (a fancy name for pink that's kinda reddish) and might go into a tiered skirt or shorts... haven't yet decided, but I am open to suggestions. Sadly, the orange seersucker clashes with the pink of the stripe above or I'd have used it in that project. I haven't yet washed the turquoise, so it might alter in value a little after washing. This one is light-light-to-medium weight.

I'm wanting to call this 'Monet' for some reason but opted to label it as 'watercolour' because that's what it reminds me of and it's a tie-dye cotton fabric of turquoise, purple, fuschia; it came off the bolt this way... well, after I washed and dried it, this is what it looks like. I have about five or six metres of this one and I'm aiming for a circle skirt with it. However, I'm open to suggestions. It's somewhat heavier than many of the others and is light-to-medium weight.

This one is a lime-sage-beige with a gold lurex stripe in it, it's all cotton except for the lurex, it's kinda stiff and naturally crinkles up like this. It's more like a scratchy gauze. I dare not tumble dry it due to the lurex or I would to see if that'd have softened it up. Currently designated for some trousers as there's about four metres of this fabric. Other option if I can source a suitable green or cream-beige cotton jersey is for that Burda boob-skirt. It's beautiful to look at. It's lightweight yet a little stiff; I don't know if ironing it would help relax it any and I don't want to melt the lurex.

This one just makes me think of candy and Colombia and fruit; it's very cheerful to me. 100% cotton seersucker and I think I have about four metres of this one. It has red, pink, green-brown, green, lime, mint... It's relatively soft and lightweight. Options are a pair of pantaloons for belly dance class as I think I have four metres of this one.

Dressmaking... which fabric?

So this summer at John Lewis, there were lots of lovely seersucker cottons and batik prints. Today I came in and found lots of those more expensive cottons on sale for half price. This works for me. I also found a Burda 'Young' pattern, #7228 that appeals to me.

Yes, the colours are off, it's what I get for taking the pictures on my phone instead of using my decent camera and waiting for sunshine.

Anyway, the skirt pattern has a jersey 'waistband' that doubles as a boob-top so you can go from skirt to dress just by pulling up the waistband and straightening it out to cover one's breasts. Dual purpose, huzzah.

I also have a Simplicity pattern #2414 for a short-short 2-tiered skirt and an almost-as-short 3-tiered skirt as well as some long shorts, capris and nearly ankle-length trousers.

The turquoise seersucker warp-stripe, I'm pretty settled on using for a pair of the #2414 shorts.

The turquoise batik flower-suns is a slightly heavier cotton so I'm not sure if it's suitable for the Burda boob-skirt due to how thick it is and because the pattern picture suggests very lightweight cottons. The instructions on back just say 'cotton fabrics'.

I know I've placed the orange seersucker with the Simplicity pattern, but I admit, I'm just as tempted to use it for the Burda boob-skirt because it's a lightweight fabric. I only have 2 metres of the orange so I have to decide, one or the other.

Related to the Simplicity pattern, I picked up this lovely warm red-yellow warp-stripe cotton that is also lightweight as well as some un-pictured red (which works (coordinates?) with the red-yellow stripe fabric) cotton poplin that is very close in weight to the stripe. I am thinking of using these for the tiered skirt. Whether I do the 2-tier or 3-tier, I haven't yet decided... the 2-tier is only 15" or so in length and that won't cover my arse never mind act as a proper skirt if I wear it on my waist. It's definitely a 'shove it down to the hips if you want to go out in public and not get arrested for indecency' skirt. I'll probably end up with the 3-tier so that I'm not flashing everyone... that or I'm wearing leggings with said 2-tier. 

Yeah, I know summer's pretty much over with, but I'll at least have some skirts to wear if I find myself someplace warm between now and next May. I am learning that the size 18 is often just a little too large, so hurrah, I might be able to squeeze into the 16, which is a lot closer to my off the peg clothing size of UK14-16.