something every good dancer needs, lol.

Thanks, I have saved that. I play Turkish clarinet with a Middle Eastern band and we often have a belly dancer with us - the problem with bellydance clothes available in the UK is that they're either cheap (and look VERY cheap) or they're ok (but VERY expensive). Make your own is a much better option.

==== j a c k at c a m p i n . m e . u k === ==== Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739 557 CD-ROMs and free stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts

I read this pattern and saw where you measure for the pants. Hip bone, hmmmmm. Can anyone tell me where the hip bone is? I don't think I have one. I think mine came out with my last baby.

LOL

If you would like some historically based patterns, I would be happy to send you some links for either Persian or Turkish styles. BTW I would LOVE to hear some of your music.

Paulette

Do you remember where you saw it last? ;-) Roberta in D

"Boca Jan" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:xtydneN4at356FzanZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com...

Those are great! I bellydanced as a hobby for years and used to make a very simple version of the pantaloons for my students. It was a great way to work on the sewing skills!

It's awesome that you play in Turkish clarinet. I love the music so much!

Steph

Those are some very complex directions to make something that is fairly easy to make. Yes, I have made and worn something similar. Have several pairs of harem pants of different styles, along with skirts, tops, belts and more. Did MidEast dance for a lot of years.

Pati, gr>

I still dance, although not very comfrotably ATM with a broken toe. I prefer skirts to dance in, although DH wears something similar to harem pants.

We were in Hasankeyf (Turkish Kurdistan) a couple of years ago and Marion got to spend an afternoon in a local tailor's shop watching how he did things. One measurement he did which I've never seen done in the West was a sort of "diagonal waist" - the tape measure was pressed against the navel in front and pulled up under the buttocks behind. It wasn't entirely clear what he did with the figure - he read all the measurements out to his assistant, who wrote them down in his notes for the order, but we didn't see the large-piece cutting.

You get an interesting view of a society seeing it through a tailor's eyes. His big order for the day was a guy who turned up with a *truckload* of children. Kurdish birthrates are among the highest in the world anyway, and the customer had two wives (illegal but locally tolerated by the traditional culture). So he got around on a flatbed truck with about 15 family in the back, including his seven (I think) sons who were all getting suits made for some special occasion.

The customer must have been pretty well off by local standards. The tailors were just hanging on, working very long hours for no luxuries. The tailor we watched did most of his work on an Iraqi machine about 20 years old, and the next shop in the street had a sign on the main machine saying "BE CAREFUL WITH ME. I'M YOUR DAILY BREAD".

==== j a c k at c a m p i n . m e . u k === ==== Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739 557 CD-ROMs and free stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts

Got something on YouTube at last:

an Arabic song:

a bunch of Iranian ones: The bad news is that I'm almost invisible and not much more audible - look for a pink blob playing the clarinet at the extreme left. I'm playing alto flute on one of the Iranian songs and you can neither see nor hear it at all, as far as I can tell, though it came through loud and clear on the monitor. But the singers sound fine and that's the main thing.

There is also an accordion in the mix (to my left and even less visible). How on earth can a sound engineer lose an accordion?

==== j a c k at c a m p i n . m e . u k === ==== Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739 557 CD-ROMs and free stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts