Periwinkle Costume

Bellydance costumes. Love them and hate them. If you want a decent one and you purchase only (there are no local vendors here) buying online is the only option or wait until a seminar to see if someone has your size, which mine isn't common since I am not well endowed. But every now and then I get a costume that can fit me but the price keeps going up. I got into sewing because I bellydance. That is the sole reason for sewing. I found that I could make skirts and pants for a fraction of the price and they would actually fit. Even with expensive costumes, beads and sequins still fall off. So regardless of price, I still had to sew!

The next biggest cost for costumes is fabric. It can get pricy. I learned that goodwill was a great (and cheap) source for fabric for costumes. And here is where this blog begins..

I found a very large (like make 2xl in women's) periwinkle and sequin skirt at goodwill for ~$4.50. I absolutely loved this fabric. The color was so pretty. We decided to make a costume using this satin. But it was going to be challenging to work around the sequin strips since they flared out. But as you will see, I think we managed! :)

Here is the skirt after I removed the waistband, little did I know how big the skirt was going to actually be!

3 people fit in it easily, then we realized we could definitely do 4!

There was still room afterwards! 4 people could fit in this skirt. Wow. But there was also a brocade panel where the sequins were glued on that could not be saved. :(

I don't have any pictures that show the progress of making these costumes. We used leftover black sparkly scrap fabric from our black skirts to make this design. The edges were done with the salvaged black ab sequins from the skirt. But here is us all together in our costumes!

This is probably the cheapest costume I have ever made since I was able to use satin from this skirt. We also lined our sets with the skirt lining. :) Total cost ~$30 for the entire costume (yes really! beats $100-$300++). And they fit and they are comfortable to wear. Something you can not always find in a bellydance costume!

There are some scraps left of the periwinkle satin. We used more than I thought we would. I am in the process of making some covered bangle bracelets and whatever else I can conjure up. :) I have used the sequins on a string for another costume too. So we are totally getting all the bang for our buck!

xoxoxo,
Lauren!