veils again what else

just an excerpt from a passing thought posted elsewhere, it keeps the world in balance for me. there's nursing and financial means and there's akai

My work and dance with veils was heavily influenced by Loie Fuller, Eva Cernik, and Adnan Sarhan. I believe in the veil as a meditative dance partner and an extension of the human energy (an aura field) ..not just an accessory. Veil dance has been hugely influential on life, I love to make silk veils for dancers of all types but also make some for practioners of healing work and therapy. I donated veils to a nursing home once, and they used the veils with a group of people who were still ambulatory and you should have seen them light up. I have always believed that Adnan Sarhan, one of my mentors, has instructed me not only to dye and color the veils but to move into instruction and teaching with them. Production has taken up 75% of work time over the past 8 years and if I can afford to cut back now , to travel and teach using some of the bellydance teaching and also Adnan's teaching, I would love to do so.

Thank you, Dina, and others, for reminding me why I do this. It's not about the next color pattern or how many wholesale accounts or being the fastest distributor. This 'business' has been so much a heart and soul project since the very first veil.

back to beach stuff

had enough free? time today to dash off to one of my favorite hotels in waikiki..i love the old colonial style of this hotel..wish i could tell you the name but i forget it all the time :) Surfrider?

here's just a few shots, we are practicing with a camera again..i've always been curious if the light in these hallways would be good, and i love it. the colors show up really nice.

this is stuff i don't normally feature online..it's more an island obsession. what you are seeing are outfits made of: silk chiffon kimono top over a scarf tied bandeau style, with a sarong, then one with a crepe de chine ruana, then the aqua and purple set is a silk knit top with a sarong, their is one photo taken with a cape which i rarely do anymore but i kept this one

one of these days they may make it to the website or etsy store..for now they are for sale in waikiki

i want to dye

finding that balance again between ordering more supplies than i can possibly go thru before heading back to hawaii ...just to dye something... and knocking out a few more CEU's for nursing again. both have an arm and are pulling me and i know i can move forward with both of them, after all geminis like challenges and we are all about balance of some sort.

am feeling a bit of angst for not being out in the hawaiian water..a quick morning surf would cure the jitters. or another rigorous vortex hike in sedona. oh i promised to come back to vortex. it's sort of like a gemini mind and you have to breathe in the moment then release it so that more info can swirl by. mmm i like swirl. colors, coffee, wind tunnels, anything that spins.

promised self to get on BART today and learn a few stops with the Z man but it's weather permitting. not completely sure how i feel about the grayness here yet (bay area) but it's only been a short time .

i think i need a good long day break from Zack..love him so much but need to spread the wings and fly around and exhaust self from looking in windows at Haight Ashbury and get a map going of the current POA ...website updates, registration for next nurse class, and if i can sit still long enough, determine exactly what it is i need to live on and work towards that. awfully tempting to go get a well paid agency job in bay area but whats the sense of making good money if no free time to spend it ? yes, the return to bay area is a return to a lifestyle i long ago ran from. but can one be a silk dyeing beach bum for life?

i need a warm, quiet rock with no distraction to figure this all out.

me likey

i wouldnt dare cut this one up to make a skirt from it but it's fueling an idea for a really bitchen panel skirt. me keepie. its hanging next to the last few.

it has a matching crepe de chine scarf (that i'm keeping)

these will come in small doses

did some pics of a few different ruanas, as you might expect there's one i'm holding back and i'll show it off later..

this one started as a complete muddy flub but magically i was able to dye over it again and paint some bitchen gold streaks in it. i'm obviously very drawn to the desert and all its magical copper and earthy colors.

for Mahisha

if you are reading this, sorry it took so long to get photos..and i know these photos suck but they are to help me remember later

am hoping she liked the brilliance of the pinks and golds..there is a green pineapple in the middle

isolate newbs up for grabs

quick shots of stuff to be listed

am loving the burgundy/peach combo

another keeper

This one was intended to be ..well not mine...but am keeping it. At least until i can get better photos of it in action. This one is painted.

this one is a keeper

I don't know why I took so many pics of one that I am keeping, the colors just gel with me and i love how the pattern turned out. There is a similar much less dramatic one that may find itself to etsy but this one is going next to Macabre for a while

the universe works in peculiar ways

I'm within weeks of holding a nurse license again yet as I step closer to that 'back up' plan , akai pulls me back in. I did not decide to go back to nursing because sales are suffering. They are down from last year but not enough to affect us financially..and last years I was still actively running auctions on ebay so even though I'm only mostly on etsy now, the drop in sales has been minimal. I think partly due to the growing demand for the clothing pieces.

Just had two inquiries this past week that should make life very interesting. One order is enough to provide residual income for the entire summer. It's a store in Italy. They like the uniqueness of the items. I suppose that is why I am such a bitch about maintaining originality and politely knocking someone in the head if they are making items that closely resemble my own. Go find your own coconut tree.

Nah the interest in returning to nursing has been purely challenge based. I love managing a company and really love that I know enough about dance to have intelligent helpful conversations with full time dancers about it. But there is an academic challenge to nursing that I crave. And of course the pay is excellent.

We'll be analyzing if it's more cost effective for me to stay home with JR and save the cost of daycare, gas, car expense and wardrobe or work pt as a nurse which is pretty consistent pay but will require daycare a couple days a week. Preschool is coming soon, I want to enjoy what time is left.

The summer appears to be a choice between beachgoing with Zachary and dabbling away at dyeing or putting in some time at the agency. I do think the first one sounds more appealing but we'll see. Maybe i can do both.

great bhuz link to history of veil dance :)

READ!! http://www.bhuz.com/forum/belly-dance-traditions-styles/26334-history-origin-veils-belly-dance.html

filled to capacity with veils!

despite the 100 days of rain we are experiencing on big island, i am filled to capacity with veils and more orders..this is the busy time of year with Rakkasah right around the corner. I normally get clobbered in Feb and Mar with wholesale (and retail) orders

Every piece of real estate that i have is filled with a silk either marinating, or slowly SLOWLY drying in this humid environment. takes forever. if i had a blast of 20 minute sunshine i could really get the conveyor belt moving again but looks like we are under a gray blanket for some time. shit. the only thing that's keeping me going with all this rain is knowing we'll be back on the sunny shores of oahu soon. well..i hear it's raining there right now too but i'll go in the water over there when it rains. big island beaches are a different story. and cold. so i may as well work. still waiting on the processing of my nursing license application. they take their time. still looking at part time jobs in oahu. still thinking i'll just use the summer to take the kid to the water and show him the fish. Moki should be with us too so i'm likely to be the beach escort. fine by me. good opportunity to work on getting that lean brown body back. no sense having playboy boobies if i dont have the stomach to match.

above is a photo of Elise from Montreal, Canada . Her site is . Photo was taken by JS Cossette. This is one of many photos forwarded to me by dancers who wish to be part of my costume cheat sheet.

Elise is also a long time vendor for A'Kai veils and her store site is http://www.cicekpasaj.com/

The costume cheat sheet will be a gallery on my site featuring dancers in all different colored costumes. What I'm wanting to do is link the pictures of the dancer with some akai veil choices so that shoppers can help determine which color veil will work with their costume.
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As so many of you already know I am a budget minded dancer and when I started working with colors for akai veils, i wanted to make veils with colors that would match up with multiple costumes. So it's common to see a veil that for example has turquoise, pink, and orange in it..so you guessed it, that veil can go with a costume that is turquoise, pink, or orange. (also they are pretty flashy)

So, most of the veils you see at offer multiple choices on how they are used.

well. it's something to do on a rainy day..doesn't look like the sun will come out any time soon. yes i'm starting to lose my marbles over it.

now dont get too excited

kimonos are something i had previously considered doing along with matching nighties but it's very costly to stock sizes of nighties and my supplier always wants large orders of them ..and as you know since i'm looking to start working part time as a nurse again i wont have the time to dye 1001 different things so i've narrowed down the product line

but these are really yummy and i had a request yesterday for a few nighties so i went ahead and dyed some kimonos at the same time. i'll have a few different colors available in a few days, along with the small nighties that admittedly dont fit most of us . but no one was buying the white ones even drastically reduced so now they are colored. i suppose they dont take up much space so i can store them till sold

i'm also coming to terms that there are certain things i am not ready to part with, a small collection of vhs bellydance tapes, no i dont have a vcr but i still can't seem to part with my Lulu or Cocktail vids so here they will remain

and just think when we are back in waikiki i wont be working first thing in the morning anymore, i'll be walking to the park or the beach daily with the baby (NO RAIN IMAGINE THAT) and then working in the afternoons. no sense spending the best energy of the day on work :)

above are some pics of a Sunrise merk kimono

i must have dyed 30+ items yesterday and today i dont feel like doing shit!

but i may continue, slowly, updating the colors page since i have a lot of color styles to add

Macabre is staying with me

just a looksie blog post to show the one i'm keeping at least until i make something else that will take her place

shades of fire in all it's burning stages ..very characteristic images of the Vorpal bunny on each 'sleeve' area. only students from my tenth grade computer class would know what a vorpal bunny is .