Designing for the decadant belly dancer!
June 3, 2010 6:21 PM Subscribe
Looking for book recommendations for bead work and belly dance costuming.
I am looking for good books to explain good costuming beadwork (types of thread, different patterns) and how to create professional grade belly dance costumes, both female and male. (Like, why are some of the bra cups extremely hard? What would a man feel comfortable dancing in?) I'm looking into all styles of belly dance, but the costumes I'll first be working on are cabaret.
I'm an intermediate sewer and I'm working with my belly dance teacher to fix up some of her costumes and try to make some for her. (yay barter) I want to go about this the right way and figure out how the professionals do it. I know absolutely nothing about beadwork and there are 15,000,000 books which all say, this is the only bead book you will ever need. Also, if I could make a bit of a side hustle out of this, that'd be great too.
I am looking for good books to explain good costuming beadwork (types of thread, different patterns) and how to create professional grade belly dance costumes, both female and male. (Like, why are some of the bra cups extremely hard? What would a man feel comfortable dancing in?) I'm looking into all styles of belly dance, but the costumes I'll first be working on are cabaret.
I'm an intermediate sewer and I'm working with my belly dance teacher to fix up some of her costumes and try to make some for her. (yay barter) I want to go about this the right way and figure out how the professionals do it. I know absolutely nothing about beadwork and there are 15,000,000 books which all say, this is the only bead book you will ever need. Also, if I could make a bit of a side hustle out of this, that'd be great too.
Beadwork is pretty intuitive, especially if you're repairing costumes where you can see what the original beader did.
A good book with lots of techniques and recommendations for materials is this one. If I recall correctly, King addresses the materials needed for high-stress beadwork situations like dance costumes.
(Disclaimer: I've taken couture sewing classes with Kenneth King.)
posted by Lycaste at 8:29 PM on June 3, 2010
A good book with lots of techniques and recommendations for materials is this one. If I recall correctly, King addresses the materials needed for high-stress beadwork situations like dance costumes.
(Disclaimer: I've taken couture sewing classes with Kenneth King.)
posted by Lycaste at 8:29 PM on June 3, 2010
Annsunny's great suggestion sent me surfing. (I'm a learner belly-dancer with a crafty streak, and an empty unplanned weekend is underway, yay!)
I found this site following various links, http://www.artemisimports.com/patterns, which has given me good ideas for basic costume pieces. Nothing about beading, but they look like great patterns for the clothing.
My instructor encourages us to watch bellydancers on youtube. Maybe watching a few vids there might give you costume/beading ideas? (I believe you can find videos of men bellydancing there - although I've never seen one personally - which might help you with their costumes too.)
I once found a page online that explained how to turn an ordinary bra into a bellydance top... replacing the straps with ribbon, covering the cups with coins, beads, adding fringe, etc. And naturally I can't find it again. Sorry.
posted by malibustacey9999 at 8:18 PM on June 4, 2010
I found this site following various links, http://www.artemisimports.com/patterns, which has given me good ideas for basic costume pieces. Nothing about beading, but they look like great patterns for the clothing.
My instructor encourages us to watch bellydancers on youtube. Maybe watching a few vids there might give you costume/beading ideas? (I believe you can find videos of men bellydancing there - although I've never seen one personally - which might help you with their costumes too.)
I once found a page online that explained how to turn an ordinary bra into a bellydance top... replacing the straps with ribbon, covering the cups with coins, beads, adding fringe, etc. And naturally I can't find it again. Sorry.
posted by malibustacey9999 at 8:18 PM on June 4, 2010
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It just has huge amounts of links for costuming of all kinds.
It can be overwhelming. I don't have any books only aimed at beaded embroidery, and the beading books I have only have a couple of pages of instruction on that. Sometimes i like to go to the public library, to check out and preview books like that. If they don't have a specific one you are looking for, most libraries have an inter-library loan program.
Also, have you checked any beading forums to see if anyone has reviewed anything?
Sorry nothing specific about any books, but the website above could be very useful to you.
Good luck!
posted by annsunny at 8:28 PM on June 3, 2010