Saturday, September 27, 2008

Bellydancing Princess Leia

So here's something clever and different....a bellydancing Princess Leia from Return of the Jedi. The dancer, Amira Sa'id, dances at a lot of conventions. You can read more about her on the Wired Blog.

As a bellydancing star wars fan and sometimes costumer, I was tempted to do something here in Australia, maybe work up a costume and do something for the cosplay at Supernova. But the negativity of the comments on the Wired blog made me wonder....perhaps the worlds of bellydance and Star Wars don't mix too well. When it comes to bellydancing, it is really a celebration of womanhood by women, primarily enjoyed by women as well. The Star Wars world, much as I hate to say it, is quite male dominated....and perhaps not quite ready for the art of middle eastern dance. Plus the connotations of Leia, dancing as a powerless slave...again, not celebrating the true strength of the dance.

That said, I think Amira/Leia is an awesome dancer, her technique is a delight to watch and more power to her!

Monday, September 22, 2008

Eurofest


Anara
Originally uploaded by jedi_enna
This is the reason I haven't been knitting lately. I had a conference in Perth all last week and then performed twice at Eurofest this weekend. I had to take up the hem of this skirt by hand which cuts into valuable knitting time (and isn't nearly as fun). Sadly it's still a little long so I will have to redo it before my next performance in October.

More photos at my flickr photostream or check out my Facebook page (for friends).

Saturday, September 06, 2008

Tangled Branches

I am feeling a little discouraged at the moment. I think I am on my fifth attempt to get through the 6-row pattern for Branching Out correctly. I plunged in rather ambitiously, starting with the lovely mohair straight away. Bad idea - very difficult to rip out mistakes in mohair. I was also cursing my cheapie 4mm needles which are impossibly blunt. It was a rude shock to go from my lovely pointy knitpicks to these, especially when the pattern calls for you to knit 3 together!

So after the third or fourth attempt, I switched to some 8ply practice yarn and my 4.5mm knitpicks. Much easier. But I still somehow ended up with the wrong number of stitches by the fifth pattern row. Sigh! I shall persevere, but what I really should do today is take up the hem of my bellydancing costume in preparation for our peformances in a few weeks.

 
template by suckmylolly.com flower brushes by gvalkyrie.deviantart.com