Three Shade Ombre

Three Shade Ombre
Originally uploaded by tigerb.

A project for my "Secret Habibi" (bellydance version of the Secret Santa). I've been wanting to try an interesting overdye method to produce a multi-colored ombre for a while, because I have no room to spread out a veil and paint it. So instead I masked half this veil and dyed the other half gold, then masked half the gold area and overdyed in fuchsia. There is a definite orangey sunset tone between the two colors. I like edged veils like this as I think the contrast edge looks great when turning.

"Could the splotches be bigger?"

I recently had quite a struggle coming up with the right colors for a custom veil. The buyer wanted a four-yard veil, featherweight, in baby blue and pale tan. This was to go with her new costume, a light blue creation adorned with beaded vultures. (Hey, it's Egyptian! Royal vultures! C'mon!)

I know better than to just dive in and dye a four-yarder for her. She is quite particular about color. So I thought I'd do a sample... and another sample... and another sample... I just COULD NOT get a pastel blue. I was using tiny, tiny amounts of dye by the end, trying to lighten the blue up. I broke down and bought Baby Blue from Dharma and came up with a reasonable sample.

The customer's response: "Could the splotches be bigger?" I cracked up!

Of course I was dyeing this Low Water Immersion style, to achieve a random effect... on a small piece of silk (about 12" by 6"), it follows that the "splotches" were fairly small. Once I understood she wanted a bigger scale to the pattern, it was easy to plan more of a direct dye application method and spread the silk out more. But those darn pastel colors! I really have found that I have to use double the dye to get the color onto the silk. I had to make two dye passes to avoid big white areas. In the end I got something she liked very much, though I had to rush on Sunday night to have it ready by Monday... no time for a picture, alas!

Aliyah Sahar

Just have to throw in a quick note of admiration for Aliyah Sahar, whose workshop I attended Saturday. It was very fun and different -- Latin Arabic fusion -- and if you were ever wondering just what to DO with those Amr Diab songs, this would be the answer. She called on her experiences in Miami (when she was learning from Tamalyn Dallal there) to mix in moves from salsa, meringue, cha cha, and other partner dances with bellydancing. The workshop was great fun. She has a wonderful personality and taught very clearly; I can't recommend her highly enough.

Gifts for the Blogosphrere

I picked this up over at ShimmyBlog and decided to join in.

By the end of the calendar year (or so), I will send a tangible, physical gift to each of the first five people to comment here within one week. The catch? Each person must make the same offer on his or her blog. My gift will involve hand dyeing of some form.

The only rule:

Anyone may respond, whether I know you or not. However, you must have a blog of your own where you can pass along the same offer.

big turquoise skirt

big turquoise skirt
Originally uploaded by tigerb.

Unfortunately it's hard to see all the shading in this skirt in a photograph; it has several different blues and some green tones as well.