First of all, I took some pictures from the All About Silk book I wrote about here. I cannot tell you enough how pleased I am with these books. They are worth every penny IMHO.
Here are 2 pages from the book. Click on the pics for the larger image.
Also, I bought the Adele Margolis' The Complete Book on Tailoring. It's a wonderful book and I deeply recommend it to everyone. I bought it over eBay and I found a wonderful surprise inside. I found an article on suede written by Sandra Betzina. It's from a newspaper, the bottom of the page says: 1982 Chronicle Publishing. I was 2 years old when it was published. Finding it was such a wonderful surprise, for some reason it seems I own a piece of sewing history - hehe I'm such a nerd sometimes. 
Now for my sewing plans:
My sister is begging me to make this kind of a maxi skirt Nicole Richie is wearing on this picture:
credits: NicoleRichie.org
The pattern for the skirt is pretty straight forward, long wide A-line. I'll be using some mid-weight black viscose knit I have in my stash. I think with this kind of skirts it's all about the drape and weight of the fabric.
Since I started belly dancing, I'm in desperate need for some costumes. So, second on my plan are a long circle skirt and a pair of harem pants. My class is having an end-of year show in July and I need a skirt to wear. I wanted to buy one, but everything I found locally was a rip-off. Everything was made of cheap, and I mean really cheap, polyester, poorly made and over-priced. Plus all the colourful skirts had black lining, which killed the vivid colours of the over-skirt.
I bought two belly dance costume booklets online: Skirting the Issues and Pants for the Dance. They cover a variety of belly dance skirt and pant styles used for costumes; as well as pattern drafting diagrams, sewing techniques, embellishment ideas, etc. They are wonderful additions to my sewing library and I'm sure I'll be using them a lot.
Here's the photo of the booklets:
So, off to sewing. I'll post pics of my fabrics tomorrow when lighting is better.
Wardrobe Sewing 2025
5 days ago
2 comments:
I agree with you about the costumes. Luckily, in my area I have a reputable person who gives me great deals. Many of the costumes come from Egypt. But they can be pricey. So, like you I've taken to making mine. These are excellent books.
Maja,
I'm also a part of sewing history. But, do I feel old! Sandra Betzina owned the Sewing Workshop in San Francisco and wrote a weekly column for the San Francisco Chronicle. That's one of her columns. Those were the good old days. We had Sandra B. and Armisted Maupin's "Tales of the City (SF, of course)" in the newspaper. Thanks for the memories! Kathy
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