03.18.07

Desperate?

Posted in Dance Accessories, General at 6:43 pm by deRomilly

Yesterday I REALLY wanted to stitch. I mean REALLY wanted to do some stitching. I had an idea, and I needed to express it. There’s got to be a catch, you say. Of course there is. When it comes to my obsession, there is always a catch!

I was at work. I had brought knitting to do on my breaks, not stitching. (Oh, the downsides of multiple obsessions!) No problem, I thought. I’ll just run up to the fabric store on my break and pick up a little piece of fabric and a couple of colors of DMC. Well, I picked up a fat quarter of quilting fabric that was exactly what I had in mind for my little experiment. But instead of getting the DMC, I decided I wanted more choice in colors and didn’t have time to stand around picking them all out, besides, I’ve got ALL the colors at home, right? And this is just an experiment anyway… So I picked up a little package of cheap embroidery floss with several different colors – a brand I’ve never heard of before.

So I’ve been stitching away on breaks yesterday and today, and I’ve come up with some ideas I really like. In fact, I like them so much that I think I want to finish them and use the fabric to cover a dance bra and maybe a belt. The catch? That cheap embroidery floss… It stitches really nicely. It’s soft and shiny. It SEEMS to be a pretty good quality. But is it? What will happen if the fabric gets folded so that some of it stays in the sunlight? Will one part of my embroidery fade? I can’t be sure.

So what am I doing today? I’m going back to the fabric store to buy ½ a yard of that fabric, and several skeins of DMC floss and I’m going to start over in the stitching department. Thank goodness it’s only herringbone and buttonhole stitch… and that I came to my senses before I did too much of it as “practice”! Besides… I needed enough fabric to make a belt, too!

Oh, you want pictures? Here’s one. I’m now already well into a “final draft” with more fabric and DMC floss - the other catch? The only way I could GET this fabric was in fat quarters. Now I am NOT a fat quarter wide, though that’s an interesting metaphor… I’m going to be piecing my belt… Wonder how THAT will work out?

Embroidery test

And yes, I am doing some more experimenting on THIS fabric. And I’ll probably keep playing with the cheap thread so that I can see how it holds up. I don’t have high hopes for it, though.

02.20.07

Shimmy, shimmy… Hipscarf!

Posted in Dance Accessories at 9:12 pm by deRomilly

My ten year old nephew is currently in the bellydance class I’m teaching. He seems very keen on the entire thing, which is particularly pleasing to me, as I’m one of the weird ones who sees the dance as coming from the folk tradition, rather than some unknown woman-centric prehistory. I’m not alone in this, as Morocco (who writes eloquently about the use of some of the movements as a birthing aid in Morocco) has as her protégé a wonderful dancer by the name of Tarik Sultan. (He’s also a fabulous teacher, if you get the opportunity).

In any case, The Nephew is very interested in a belt. I think he likes the noise aspect of the whole thing, as well as the moving part. I know men wear the traditional coin belts: I’ve seen them. But I wanted to do something a bit more individual for kiddo. He likes the tassels, but unlike his mother, he doesn’t want ONLY tassels. He’s a magpie. He wants shiny jingly things as well to feather his nest.

So I decided to make him a combination tassel/coin belt. It’s going to take some investment, as coins are not particularly inexpensive, but in the end I think it will be worth it. I’m currently playing with a couple of ideas, including chainette fringe instead of tassels, and all three: fringe, tassels AND coins! More is always better, right? (Have I mentioned that my favorite embroidery techniques come from the baroque era? {grin}). However, I think I’ll sideline the baroque for now, and start with working on a base — I’m thinking red and blue with shisha and chain-stitch embroidery patterns…

Step one: Measure kid’s hips.

Something tells me this isn’t going to be as easy as I first thought…

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