Thread: Help me pick the right fabric!!!

ok, i'd love to make a circle skirt and matching veil but since there are no decent shops in my area i thought i could order 10 meters or so online. the trouble is i'm not sure what the right fabric would be! i'm an absolute novice at sewing, so it has to be one that's easy to sew. also, i really want one of those vintage looking fabrics for my skirt...so anything sari-looking, stripy, polka dotty, sparkly would be good.
thanks in advance
Athena

If you want the veil and skirt out of the same fabric, and you're not planning on doing the older capework that used a heavy veil, you'll want something lightweight with nice drape. For most people, this is a polyester chiffon or Habotai silk. If you don't mind matching colors and using two separate types of fabrics, there are more options for the skirt. My first teacher loved using tricot for skirts (the same fabric as most commercial lingerie slips). Lycra and similar knits, stretch satins, etc., sew up heavy, but flow nicely on the body while dancing. I would avoid costume satin--I find it miserable to work with. Even though it comes in a ton of pretty colors and it's cheap, it's very fussy, hard to cut straight, and unravels easily, so it's not a good fabric for someone without much sewing experience.

You may need to be careful about patterns or nap and buy extra yardage for those fabrics. Anything with texture (e.g., velvet) or sheen (e.g., satin) needs to be cut on consistent grain, so you will need to line up all your circles the same way when you cut them out, and consequently that takes more fabric. Generally, speaking, polka dots don't tend to show up much in Middle Eastern dance costumes---sometimes you see them on the modern couture costumes, but otherwise, I think the only time they're used is for stage-y folkloric costumes like Melaya Leff and Fellahi dresses or Flamenco-inspired skirts. Stripes and clearly directional patterns like sari borders aren't common, either. Because of the mechanics of how a circle skirt is constructed, those sorts of fabrics make up with mixed results. Some dancers love the zigzagging of the lines on a circle skirt made with striped fabric, but others hate it. If you want a border print, it's better to go with a more structured skirt with pleating or a style with gores/panels/inserts that won't send the design in crazy directions instead of a circle skirt. Alternatively, you could buy a separate trim border and sew it onto the skirt bottom to decorate the hem. Wider borders are more difficult to apply, though.

Blouse-weight jacquards (where a floral or paisley pattern is woven into the fabric) would have been consistent with the older style of circle skirt, so that's a better choice if you want something other than plain fabric. As for sparkly, you should be able to find decorated chiffons or lightweight knits that have heat-applied sequins or glitter. If you're lucky, you can catch them on sale or in the remnant bin. Otherwise, they're more expensive than plain fabric.

There are a couple of threads on Bhuz about making skirts. Here's one to give you some ideas: http://www.bhuz.com/forum/belly-danc...kirt-talk.html. HTH!