Kyria's journal

 My hands have not been idle in the past weeks. I spent 20 hours on making the beaded fringe for the belt and after that I needed a couple of days to put the belt in my living room so I could stare at it in awe. It's so pretty and sparkly!  It also helps me to keep me motivated, as it will take a lot of hours to make/finish the matching bra. That's what I'm going to work on the next couple of days, stay tuned for more costuming posts. 

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 No pictures today, but a bit of contemplating about yesterdays poll about chosing colors. And for me a chance to take three of my favorite things and mix them together, the three things being chocolate, glitters and costumes :)

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That's all folks, regular costume posts will continue soon.

 I promised to give you guys a peek of the belt with the rhinestones, and here we go.
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An update on the resources: the sequins arrived in Tuesday and the beads arrived today. Those hot pink beads? They are not matching the sequins and fabric. Lucky for me, the supposedly purple beads are a perfect match, so I'm going to use those. I also realized that I needed more gold bugle beads and purple bugle beads then I expected, if I want to make the fringe too. I ordered those today but expect that it will take another 5 days before they arrive. 

Tomorrows post is all about the paisley front closure that isn't pictured in the above update.  

 Covering the belt base seemed like an impossible task. With all the cut-outs, curls and corners, I was not looking forward to the process. Today I'll show you how I covered the swirly part of the design.
( Read more... )Covering the complete belt took me 3 hours, but it is very satisfying to see how the project is advancing. Tomorrow I'll post a picture of the whole belt covered in fashion fabric, and the first rhinestones will make an appearance :)

For a duo performance on April the third, we've been practicing and choreographing a song from Asena's 2005 cd. We didn't decide on costuming yet, but I assumed we'd wear old school Turkish bra and belt sets. I still have my first pro costume, an ancient Bella bra/belt that I bought second hand from my teacher. However, something unexpected happen: I had a Bella costume that didn't fit me, and my fellow dancer fell in love with the costume and bought it from me. 

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Bella costumes: she creates beautiful costumes, using high quality crystals and holographic sequins. Her bead work is amazing, made into almost lattice like curls and shapes. In short, my fellow dancer had a kick-ass modern style Bella costume and asked me if she could wear it for the show. We agreed that she could, but I sort of forgot that I haven't got anything similar in style or bling to match.

That's when I decided I should make a modern Turkish style costume that would look good on stage next to a Bella. To make matters more complicated, I'm on a rather tight budget (that's why buying a costume was not an option). I do have a lot of time on my hands and that is a real advantage in this case! I plan to finish this costume in four weeks, and will update often on the progress and problems I run in. Today part 1: the materials.

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That's it for now, more on the belt pattern tomorrow!

This years castle fest was blessed with good weather and some fine artists. More on that later!! I finished my outfit yesterday around 23.00. When I got home today after the fair I took some pictures of the whole outfit including hair and make-up. Enjoy!
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We bought the fabric on the market last weekend and found an amazing glitterdot fabric with holographic sequins. I really detest the stuff, but it looks amazing on stage so we went with it anyway. At 2 euro's a meter mistakes are affordable.

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Finished! I handstitched the hook and eye closures in place, added the ruffles to the bottom, cut, tipped and placed the boning and then stood back to admire my work. Baby's got back!

How many corset belts does a girl need? Answer: always one more!

This is the belt base, I'm beading black and white cowry tassels and I'm considering adding white panels with black lace overlay to the belt. Wish I was this far with prepping the performance that should go with this costume.