Category: Sewing


Preparing to Vend

A month or so ago, we had our very first vending experience.  It was small scale, we had a table at a local workshop and hafla here in Gainesville.  In deciding what to bring, we looked at the things that we make for ourselves that usually garner the most interest from the other gals in our regular weekly belly dance classes.  We opted for items that are fairly quick to make, and use simple materials – tassels and floofy pants.  Of course we also took the opportunity to clean out the dance closet a bit, and brought several used items, appropriately marked down.

Anywho, the main purpose of this post is to share a couple of fun pictures from one of our work days preparing items to bring.

Some really cute fabric for pantaloons.

The main work table.

Modeling one pair of pants (before the drawstrings go in).

And last but not least, the tassel basket.

The tassel basket lives in my craft room now, and I try to make and add new tassels periodically so that it’s always ready.  These tassels have a big loop on the top that can slide over a simple braided belt (or any other kind of narrow belt) so that you can easily mix and match tassels to go with the rest of your outfit and wear the belt wherever looks best amidst your other scarves/belts/etc.  We call it BYOB (Build Your Own Belt) – hehe.

We’re going to try out using these in our semi-private belly dance classes to help students (especially new students) see the movement of their hips better, without the noise of coin scarves.  It seems like braided belt will make a nice, straight horizontal line that the dancer can watch in the mirror and see the angle of their hips more clearly than with most coin or fringe scarves.  The tassels are very lightweight too, so they should move easily and help a new dancer with a smaller range of motion to see the tassel responding to the movement where a heavier scarf might not move much.  If this experiment works well, I’ll be back later to tell you all about it!

How to Make Your Own Pantaloons

Ever wish you could make your own floofy pantaloons (sometimes called harem pants) so that you could save some money, or get just the right color?  Well, you totally can!  Here’s a relatively quick and easy way to do it.

Materials you need:

  • Fabric (2-4 yards)
  • Matching thread
  • Sewing machine
  • Ribbon or elastic for waistband
  • Elastic for cuffs
  • Safety pin
  • Straight pins

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