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Do you Twitter

Follow me. http://twitter.com/raksgothique

The angel

There are no words....

Morgana

Awesome. Spellbinding.

Addicted to Dance

Last night on So You Think You Can Dance, one of the judges said that dance was her addiction of choice. Then today it hit me. That's what's been missing from my life. Over the last five years I've gradually lost my addiction to dance. Partly from aging, partly from health problems and most definitely from lack of space problems. Can I get it back? Is it dead forever or just buried under too much baggage?

Making a choli

It occurred to me that a choli is basically a cropped t-shirt cut up the back & laced together again or fastened with ties. Visualizing it makes sewing easier. I might even be able to use a t-shirt that fits me as a pattern.

Raks Gothica

And now for something different:

See some belly dancing videos.

I write articles on belly dancing sometimes. They are posted over here: http://hubpages.com/hub/Favorite_Belly_Dance_Videos on Hubpages.com.

2 Panel Skirt Tutorial

How to make an inexpensive skirt that will fit you and can be embellished in many ways.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Tutorial-Super-Simple-Belly-Dance-Skirt-Fits-Any-Size

Unmata

I was looking at belly dancing photos on Flickr and found a group with very cool costumes so I looked them up on youtube. I loved the Unmata videos I found on youtube yesterday. So I added them to my Slide Show. I hope I get to see them live sometime.

Panel Skirt

I have some lacy aqua fabric that is going to make a great 2 panel skirt. It reminds me of mermaid seaweed. I should take a photo of it and show you guys.

Dance wherever you can.

Too hot for a daily walk, but if I turn on the air conditioner, I may bellydance in my living room for a bit. Stretching too. Stretching first and after. Having a good time watching Unmata videos on youtube. Fascinating troupe. Would love to see them live some day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9LeOz_3Z4Y&NR=1

Make a Gypsy Skirt

Make a Gypsy Skirt

I'm not sure I posted this before, but it's an article I wrote on making your own tiered gypsy style dancing skirt.

Genie Hat Prototype

I made this cool little genie hat today for a social experiment, and now I'm thinking of making more for my etsy shop. Even two layers of buckram were a little too floppy, so on the next one I will make the interior from plastic canvas to help it hold it's shape better.

The veil is fastened to the pony tail holder. I tried fastening it directly to the ring, but the veil was too heavy and kept pulling it off. A chiffon veil might not have that issue, since it's the sequins that are heavy. It is held on with two hat pins, one on each side.The metal part is a vintage earring.

This is a lot of fun to wear too.

Dance when no one is looking

Tired of ironing your veil?

There was a belly dancing troupe that had those beautiful lame' veils. You know the fancy ones that catch the light but also wrinkle every time you set them down?
After constantly trying to iron out the wrinkles before every show they figured something out. If they took the veil and scrunched it all up each time, they got these lovely crinkles that looked really good under the stage lights, and no more ironing! I thought it was a stroke of genius.

Dance a little every day.

Consistancy reaps big benefits. Figure out how to squeeze at least 10 minutes of yoga, dancing, stretching, etc into each and every day. Your muscles and mind and spirit will really appreciate it.

Cowry Hair Falls

It took me all day but I did it.

Pirate Belly Dance

As soon as I get the hang of these hair falls, I'm going to make some to go with my pirate garb. Seashells belong on pirate costumes. And so do some of these neat carved bone items I've been accumulating. I have a pirate belly dance tribe over on tribe net. It will be nice to have something new to add to it.

http://piratebellydance.tribe.net

Cowrie hair falls for tribal belly dancing

Today I sat myself down and decided to teach myself to make cowry hair falls for belly dancing. First I took inventory of things I already had in my bead box and in my jewelry box. At first I was going to make a matching pair but I scrapped that idea because I don't have enough cowry shells. With any luck I'll be able to make 2 solos instead of one pair.

I started with a 9 yard strand of black yarn and a 9 yard strand of fuzzy variegated white and blue yarn. I laid them together, evened up the ends, folded them in half and tied a 2" loop in the center. That gave me four working strands. I looped it over a nail so I could keep tension on it while doing the knotwork. Now I'm in the process of stringing and knotting various items. I'm hoping to make a fall 3 feet long. Right now I'm about 1 foot into it. But hope springs eternal. Some of the cowry shells have holes that are too small so I'll have to make the holes bigger...either with my needlenose pliers or the dremel or something. I'll keep you posted.

Update: I ended up using cowry shells, brass bells, pre-made tassels, bone beads, and a bone charm, and a cross section of seashell.
A bead reamer came in very handy for making the pre-drilled cowrie shell holes bigger. I made a needle threader out of wire and used it to pull the yarn through the holes. If you need to know anything else just ask. See the photos in the later post. Basically I used macrame' knots between everything. I didn't use any braiding because I'm working with four strands, not three and I didn't want to relearn four strand braiding when macrame' works perfectly well.