Dance in Winter

 You may already know that I am in a tribal belly dance group, The Severn Sisters. Severn, as in the River Severn in Shropshire. Sometimes there are seven of us, but not always! Our usual kit normally consists of lace tops and lots of hip layers, basically, more is more.

Picture by Ian Woodward from the hooded lens

Sometimes we dance at festivals and local events. Can you possibly imagine having your belly out in this weather? We danced once in Ironbridge on a pouring wet day and we were all freezing. So there was a request from the Sisters to make a dance dress to keep us cosy but still feeling beautiful. We saw some on our favourite tribal group Black Veil.



The pattern comes from an unlikely source. It is the pattern I used for my pyjama top. I tried to take it in at the waist side seams and sleeves. I lengthened it, then spilt up the sides so we can tuck our skirt frills over our hip belts. This is a prototype that took two hours last week to whizz up on the overlocker in stretch, crush velvet. 

I needed to do a bit more work to get some of the wrinkles out. I need to make it tighter or eat more cake but I am nearly there.

...one week later....better?
  

I think this photo perfectly illustrates my dressmaking fitting issues. My backside is never in the same size as my waist fitting and I am short in the back with a sway too.

In the end, I used two front darts and two back darts to make the body smooth. This is it without skirt frill tucked in and it certainly is warm.

Tomorrow night we are dancing so I hope it works out OK.

"Always dance like nobody's watching..."
(Mark Twain)

Jo xxxxx