Warning: Image heavy post to follow, for as promised – my tribal fusion bellydance belt!

TA-DA!

Now, as to how I made it, it wouldn’t have been possible without a belt base I got from my friend Tamsin. I have a tendency to be very matchy-matchy-monochrome, while Tribal Fusion’s ethos tends to let a plethora of colours coexist—and somehow, they don’t end up clashing. Problem is, I can’t do this without it being forced upon me. Starting with the belt base from Tamsin helped greatly. The base itself is the multi-coloured band with a stretch velvet backing; it already had the little knobbly bits and the coins at the bottom.

The colours within it are some I would never have used/put together, but it also has several of my “dance colours”: specific pinks, blues, and greens.

Next on the belt came danglies! I was very methodical about these, spacing them evenly. Out of the six specific danglies on my belt, two are pendants from Tamsin (she’s my tribal costuming guru) and the other four are diamonds of steel chainmail (what, you thought something I touched would get away without maille on it?). I’m hoping the steel gets dull and/or rusts eventually, because that’ll give it an additional texture.

A “traditional” tribal fusion belt (as traditional as they get) wouldn’t be complete without yarn swag. I used a combination of thick/thin yarn that was frogged from a charity shop scarf and a dark pink wavy yarn that I’d previously used for a hat. I put two just-past-kneelength swags in the front, and then a bustly-type puff at the back. I also stuck some chain scraps in with the front swags.

Here’s the secret about my danglies and yarn, though—as a Poor Postgrad, I wanted my belt to be as multi-functional as possible. As yarn swags’ colours can dominate a costume (particularly if you choose ridiculously bright like me), I didn’t want my swags to be permanent. Thus multifunctional here means being able to switch things out. I did this by putting keyrings on the inside of the belt! However, I didn’t sew the keyrings directly to the belt – I was worried that would be too weak. Instead, I placed a piece of felt over them and  sewed around the outside and inside upper half of the rings, then put a few large “holding” stitches that looped all the way around the keyrings. Then, every swag and dangly was put on a small ring and hooked onto the keyring, like so:

Instachange!

Another common item on tribal fusion belts are medallions, usually at the front and placed over the hipbones to accentuate movement. For this reason, it’s especially good for them to be big and bright. On my belt, the placement wasn’t difficult to find—the base ends and stretch velvet begins exactly where my hipbones are. I was actually spoiled for choice, as I’d received two lovely and large beaded medallions from Tamsin—but I’d also been talked into making prototype chainmail medallions by my lovely tribal fusion teacher, Laura Monteith of Sarasvati.

It took me about two and a half hours for one, plus the time sewing it onto the base (felt covered in green stretch velvet), and I really wanted to use the final pair! Thus, I took a page out of Mardi Love of The Indigo’s book and put my maille medallions over my hipbones—and then put the ones from Tamsin on the back! These were all safety-pinned in, so I can move them about and switch them up at my leisure.

Next time, permanent additions to the belt base!

Tags: bellydance,maille,tribal fusion
Categories: projects
No Comments »

Well! Ravelympics is half over, and life has since intervened and given me very little time to knit. However! After a couple tries, the Bishops are created, and Pawns are nearly done!

For some reason even though both of these are simpler designs than the King and Queen they took much longer, being ripped out several times. I still haven’t figured out a proper base that will let them stand, either. After this, the Rook and the Knight remain. The latter will be definitely the most difficult piece, both to create and just to knit—I’m envisioning lots of shaping. The Rook may also prove difficult, as I’d really like to create a square tower. If that doesn’t pan out, it’ll be a round one with crenellations, but here’s hoping.

In other crafts, I’ve been costuming like CRAZY. That would be some of above-mentioned the life intervening—there’s a tribal b-dance performance in three weeks, and I’m making most of my costume from bits and bobs. I’m retrofitting a pair of trousers, revamping a drape, bustling a skirt, figuring out a headdress*, and making a belt. Next week sometime I’ll post exactly how I went about making it, but until then, look at the pretty hip-medallions I chainmailled this weekend!

The one on the left is the “raw” product, while the other is sewn onto a circle made of felt and covered with green stretch velvet. Nice, solid, and just stiff enough that the maille and the circle don’t go floppy. Thinking of branching out into peacock-coloured medallions, and am making a pair of the basic ones for my awesome teacher!

And that’s it for now; Lysse-bird out.

* I’ve got a headdress!**

** Please ignore the inside joke.

Tags: bellydance,knit,maille,ravelympics
Categories: knit, maille
No Comments »

AHAHAHAHAHA. Why do we write blogs about things that already make our hands cramp in pain? It’s very lucky that I type mostly left handed and craft predominately right handed, because that means my poor right hand doesn’t have to do too much work when blogging. Ahahaha.

Why the manic laughter? Well, it all begins when a dear friend asked me to make him a pair of maille glovebacks backs, as he’s a Viking reenactor — British hardcore style, not American theatre style. If you need an explanation… ask, and I’ll reply when I’m not so incredibly tired.

Why am I tired? For the same reason as the manic laughter. I added up the hours that I worked on the glovebacks in the last two days, and it was EIGHTEEN HOURS. No wonder my right hand (and back, and shoulders) is (are) sore. And my eyes as well– I can’t maille without some distraction, so I’ve been watching Things. I began with the Muppet Movie, then the Muppet Caper, then Muppets Take Manhattan, then Muppet Treasure Island (with and without commentary). Then, moving on, I watched the last two weeks of both the Daily Show AND the Colbert Report, the extended edition of Kingdom of Heaven, and rounded it all off with a recorded copy of the Olympic Opening Ceremony (which I had meant to see but never got around to). I finished up 2/3s of the way through the Parade of Nations. AAAAAGH.

Pictures later when there’s hopefully better light. Now, to rest my aching bits and sleep.

Tags: glovebacks,maille
Categories: maille, projects
No Comments »

Colour scheme is good. Now I just need to destroy/rewrite the links (what a horrible section right now) and figure out whether there’s any other plug-ins I want to add. I’d like to find progress bars for monitoring projects, but I haven’t found anything pretty. Most of them are simply horrible to look at.

The header is a rough draft… there will be swirlies added later, and a better background, and possibly resizing of the text. I’d also like to add some knit/crochet/maille projects to it, but that would require me to do something pretty in knit (my first cable?), crochet (my first lace?), or maille (that’s simple — just a big block of 4-in-1, ugh).

Speaking of actual projects! I’ve done some today–worked on my bellydancing socks (I’m only a couple dozen rows away from finishing the first one!) and a maille belt that I’d had on the backburner for eons! No crochet, but that’s because all there is in the crochet stack is a bag that I’ve gotten utterly sick of, as happens when one just *sc over and over for hundreds of stitches.

And I should probably sleep sometime tonight… enough playing with php for me!

Tags: crochet,knit,maille
Categories: projects
No Comments »