Got to Dance!!

Hey, I’ve been spending alot of time dancing recently…I started a new tribal class which is great fun and I still go to my regular bellydance class!

Of course this inevitably means that a lot of my crafting time has involved costume-making, some of it easy, some of it quite challenging!

I thought I’d share some of last years projects with you.

So this was my most challenging project – a 25 yard skirt for twirling about at tribal class. This inevitably turned into a 24 metre skirt since we are metric here in the UK. Now, maths is not my strongest point. Not at all, no siree! I found loads of great tutorials and formulas on t’internet which made absolutely no sense at all to me. In the end I sat and drew pictures. Eventually my doodling provided me with something I could actually work with (although I had to go to the fabric shop twice because I didn’t buy enough fabric the first time hee hee!)

So I had to learn to gather and sew humongous amounts of fabric. Seriously, I literally drowned in fabric at times. The fabric is a lovely cherry red colour and is light enough to swirl when I spin. I think I almost lost the will to live at one point when I was serging the seams, and I have to confess that I couldn’t face the thought of rethreading my serging, so I used the black thread that was already in it. Which was okay because most of the serging was on the inside. But then I had to serge the hem and by this time I was *keen* to see the back of this project finish!

So I just carried on with the black thread and bugger me, it looks fab! That little edge of black along the bottom looks fantastic cascading down the side of the skirt when I tuck a hem into my waistband.

Now I know why you pay so much for 25 yrd skirts; they are a huuuuuge commitment of time, stress and angst! This might be the last skirt I ever make *lol* I’m not completely happy with it; my perfectionist’s eyes are drawn to the many imperfections in the skirt, but I figure that it’s good enough for class practice. I don’t think I would ever wear it for a performance!

Okay, so I really wanted a pair of melodias but they cost, so when I came upon a pair of black velvet stretchy pants tucked away in my wardrobe, I thought they would make a fine pair of tribal trousers, only they just weren’t wide enough!! So I took the side seams apart and slotted in some black satin fabric

Then, to make them look pretty, I added an appliqued design and some beads and sequins.

 

Of course, any practice needs a twirly shimmy skirt two and I made a couple of those…

This an asymmetrical hem, elasticated waist handkerchief skirt made from a lovely black lace. It helps create a lovely layered look when you add another scarf or belt on top.

And then this one which I adore, is made from glitter dot fabric – silver on black – it’s gorgeous and really sparkles in the light!

I needed a tribal coin bra for my first ever tribal performance, so I found a black bikini bra (fantastic by the way, since the clasps and straps on a bikini top are designed to be worn.

 

And because I had some time over Christmas, I raided my scrap back and created this long shimmy belt with side ties and a lovely beaded back swag!

I also made this for fun – and mainly because my fringe was doing my head in and getting in my eyes at dance practice!!

Soo, these are some of the pretty things I’ve been crafting over the last six months *lol*

A Very Merry Yuletide…

Well, here we are, it’s nearly Christmas and I haven’t blogged for aaaages! Sorry if you’ve been a regular reader awaiting my crafty updates, but this last term has been very very time consuming! But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been creating, ‘coz I have!

Soo, what have I been up to since my last blog, which was my Blogoversary?

Well, I went to the Barefoot Festival with some friends. I volunteer there every year; it’s a festival of dance and other goddess-y things,

There’s always a great show on the Saturday night, followed by an amazing fire show

M and I went to Lyme Regis for a holiday in the caravan. The weather wasn’t great; in fact there were alot of days when I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face! But we did some fossil hunting along the Jurassic Coast, finding lots of great fossils

 

We went to the Donkey Sanctuary, Monkey World (also a sanctuary) and lots of other great places.

Term time has been really busy; observations and OFSTED visits have been very much the order of the day…very stressy! Still, I have been able to get some therapeutic crafting done

 

 

 

Trousers have been embellished…

And brooches have been made – these are some reclaimed jumpers, felted and then needle felted and embellished.

This brooch I love, it’s made from scraps of netting with a shisha mirror and some beads…it goes really well with my black velvet swing coat!

I’ve really been getting into Geocaching this year as well. It’s a kind of treasure hunting…you follow the clues to find the cache (usually a box with some swappy things inside, and a log book to sign)

I normally go with the Uberhound…it gives our walks a purpose and I’ve been to some lovely places this year that I knew nothing about before! I usually take my camera and I’ve got some great shots!

 

We also had our annual Christmas Hafla where I ended up dancing three dances!

 

 

So, the last couple of months in a couple of photos!!

I promise not to leave it so long before I blog again…

The Happy Happy Hippy Swap…

Each year I organise the Hippy Swap over on Craftster. It’s become like a tradition; I finish school, I have more time for crafting and sitting for hours staring at a computer screen trawling through crafty sites…you know how it is! The weather has been quite nice here, so I’ve spent alot of time in my garden, digging and planting, and moving stuff around. Look here, this is the first ever water lily to grow in my tiny water garden (big water filled bowl) and it’s soo pretty! It’s a dwarf water lily.

I’ve also done a little bit of crafting for me. This was an old t-shirt that’d been sitting around waiting for me to finish. I’d done a little bit of re-fashioning on it, cutting on the crew neck (which I’m really not find of) and creating a v-neck, trimmed with pink and gold gauzy ribbon. And then I ran out of inspiration….it sat there for quite a while waiting for the right idea. Anyway, after doing a couple of refashioning workshops, I decided that what this t-shirt needed was a bit of appliqué. And so the butterfly t-shirt was born. Or rather, sewn.

 

 

I freehand drew a butterfly outline on some paper, transferred it onto Bondaweb, ironed it to some pretty pink fabric and cut out the butterfly shape. Then I ironed it onto some purple fabric and cut round it so that you could see the purple round the pink. I made a body and some spots out of the purple fabric too and ironed them on.

Then I embroidered round them using a blanket stitch and some pink and gold threads. I also added some gold sequins for a bit of sparkle. Much better!

 

So then I concentrated on my hippy swap package. I can now post photos because my partner’s received the package and I’ve received hers! Because my partner was in the UK, I knitted a nice warm hat for the cold weather which is very practical for this country. This is the Meret by Woolly Wormhead, it’s one of my favourite patterns. I made it a slouchy hat…  

 

with a combination rolled/ribbed edge.

 

I used a lovely warm brown…

I also needle felted and embellished this felt brooch, made from an old fulled jumper. It has green sequins and beads along the edge. I love needle felting, it’s so therapeutic stabbing away!!

 

Since my partner is a beginner belly dancer and wanted a coin belt, I decided to make her one. Her favourite colours were very autumnal, greens and browns and golds. It’s wonderfully jingly!

 

I also used some decorative ribbon and sequin strands for some sparkle.

I made sure that even the ends looked good!

And because you just have to wear flowers in your hair when you’re dancing, I made this lily hair clip. I used a flower from a cheap ‘pound shop’ artificial ‘bouquet’ and coated the edges in glitter glue…

 

Then I glued a spring clip underneath, making sure to hide alot of the clip in the leaves. I like to tuck flowers in my hair by my ear and I find the flowers on clips stay better than on bands.

My partner likes to write notes and lists in a notebook, so I also made her a felt notebook cover which she can take off when the notebook is full and change to another notebook. I covered it using the ‘paper fabric’ technique I learnt at a workshop a couple of months ago, and then embellished it using embroidery threads, flowers and sequins.

 

Hopefully using felt will make it quite durable…

 

I also used Angelina Fibres on it which are such fun to work with!

The notebook is just a cheap and cheerful A5 hardback notebook.

 

I sent along one of the rainbow light bulbs from my shop, because they are just so damned hippy-ish!

And in the spirit of eco-friendly hippy crafts, I upcycled an old Ferrero Rocher plastic box, and decorated it using glass paints.

 

It looks lovely in the sunshine.

I’m kind of an overachiever and I do tend to spoil my swap partners, and well, hippy crafting is such good fun, that I had to make some extras for the package, but I’d agreed with my partner that we’d do extras, so that was fine and dandy. I made a green and brown beaded necklace with a Celtic pendant, since my partner loves all things Celtic, and greens and browns….

 

I had planned to do a bit of hippy-like appliqué, but I just couldn’t find the right image, then I noticed that I had some green fabric left from my belly dance costume that would go really well with this top, and some green organza that complimented it really well, and the top sort of morphed and became a sort of woodland fairy type of top instead.

I made some ruffles by tearing two strips of fabric which were much much longer than the bit that I wanted to embellish. I sewed a running stitch along the middle of each strip and pulled so that it gathered it up. Then I sewed it into place. I did the organza one first, then the satin ruffle, the I sewed a faceted bead every cm or so. The fabrics  should fray and look pretty…. 

 

I also painted an ash catcher green, then decoupaged it with a sunflower and sparkly Modge Podge. I varnished it to make sure it was durable. This didn’t photograph so well, so you’ll have to take my word for it that there’s a sunflower on it!

To see what I received in return, click here. We were both very happy hippies!