Bombay's Bar and Grill in Ventura 2010/12/03: Elizabeth Mahina

Froggy's Fish Market 2010/11/21: Riley

This is my granddaughter Riley's solo dance debut! 3 minutes may have been a bit long but I think she did quite well!

Knitters may want to look at this!"The Great Radish Famine"

Scarlett's Nightmare Pictures

I nicked some pictures of the show Scarlett's Nightmare taken by my friend Roger Hendrix. The show was awesome fun! I actually think I looked kinda scary! And because I am narcissistic most of the pictures are of me...lol. The belt I'm wearing is handspun/dyed/woven, of course!

Here is the list of performers that are pictured here:

Karma - spectre

Tre - ghosts

Elizabeth Mahina (me)- demon

Desert Lotus Tribal - Dia de los muretos

Edenia - cat

Duality- insane assylum

Blue Moon Haven - Claustraphobia

Alexandra Samuel - Undertaker

Marjhani - Death

Olu - Snake

Om Sisters - Crazy clowns

Chimay - Fortune tellers

Vampires - Black Orchid Belly Dance

Scarlett's NIghtmare

One more little thing this weekend I'm dancing in a show which is a charity fund raiser callled Scarlett's Nightmare...I'm sworn to secrecy about my part so I won't revel who I'm playing. But I will take my camera along and make sure I get video this time! My life will be taken over tomorrow by Tech rehearsal and then a matinee & evening show on Saturday!

EXCITING!!!

Here's the link for info and tickets

Intro - Scarlett's Nightmare

Love Your Body Day for Bellydancers

A few months ago I agreed to dance at this event

called Love Your Body Day for Bellydancers. I truly love the girls in my troupe, but they are picture perfect type girls-except me. And you know I realize I'm not what you would call fat by any measure, but I am a woman getting older, gaining weight, getting grey hair & wrinkles. I felt a strong need to dance at something where I would be able to publicly "love my body." I needed it as a remedy for all the negative thoughts I throw at my body and myself!

I just want to love who I am now and be happy and

healthy. It's a funny thing cause I don't feel any dislike or distaste for anyone else who is not our society's idea of perfect but I'm so critical of myself. Anyway, I agreed to dance a solo...it was really fun! I loved it. Here are some pictures...I

wish I had video cause I felt really good about my performance,

but Robert couldn't come along.

Then later that evening Robert & I went to a Halloween party put on by our friends of Port of the Black Sail. We dressed as Morticia and Gomez Addams...Robert was SO awesome! For my performance I started out dancing a solo...Morticia style and then he joined me to dance a tango when I inadvertently spoke French!! The song was so great too, the Masocism Tango!

What we did on the Hottest day ever recorded in downtown L.A.

We had to bring our bunnies indoors naturally! On September 27th the temperatures in downtown L.A. reached a record high of 113F (or 45C depending on your preferred language), up here in the Santa Monica Mountains on my car's thermometer read 114F.

Riley & Puffy----------------------------------------->

I knew it was hot when I left my home to go to yoga class at 9:30am but when I got out I was shocked at how hot it was becoming! I rushed home to save my rabbits! I mean could you imagine wearing an angora sweater in that kind of heat? They were limp when I got there...I brought Puffy in and he crawled under the coffee table and panted and then brought Midnight in and she crawled under my loom to do the same. I set them up with some ice bottles and water in a big hutch in the kitchen. I was afraid they would die...we had already lost another bunny earlier in the summer, Snowflake and I didn't want to repeat that. Here are some pictures after they recovered.

I had to sneak in a picture of the overshot I'm weaving...don't ask what it's going to be. I don't know yet!

This is Midnight after she felt better and was able to hop around under the loom happily.

Tales of Desire dvd

I was just realizing that I don't know if I've posted that I'm in this DVD called Tales of Desire

You can buy it from Hollywood Music or on Amazon.com

Amazon.com: Tales of Desire: A Tribal Fusion Bellydance Experience: Various: Movies & TV

WTF??

Ok so I just signed onto blogger to catch up on reading the several blogs that I follow and it says I'm not following any blogs! WTF is that about? Sorry! Did this happen to anyone else or is it just me?

Happy Autumn Equinox

Yes you can balance an egg on the equinox here's the proof!

World Wide Spin in Public day

In honor of World Wide Spin In Public day our guild of gypsy pirates decided to open our encampment to visitors at the Ojai Pirate Faire...

Here are some pictures!

Unfortunately I didn't feel very well over the weekend so I wasn't as fun as I think I should have been...but I got a good bit of spinning down!

ARRRGH!!!

She"endra at Froggys May 7th Part 2

Eclectic Ensemble

Last night my student troupe Tandava & I danced at Donavon's Studio Iqaat for the Eclectic Ensemble that DJ Amar puts on from time to time. It was super fun and I'm proud of the girls, they danced their hearts out...you can watch this video! We start around 30:00 but you should watch the whole show cause it's pretty darned good! Olu, Wild Routes, Nautch Conspiracy, Michealla Manning & more. Some of the dancers are also former students and ALL are friends! yay!

Ventura County fair August 2010

I must say that this was the coolest summer in my memory! Since I'm not a fan of hot weather it was great for me, but when it got hot it got super hot and temperatures went up to 104* ugh! Ok summer in Southern California should be hot that is normal probably averaging in the 80's with some heat waves that go up into the 90's and maybe one heat wave going up into the 100's. But going from the 60's to over 100 in one day is just wrong! Does anyone doubt global climate change any more?

One of the usual summer activities I enjoy taking part in is the Ventura County Fair, the last few years I've been too busy dancing to take the time to enter anything. But I've made an effor to be more involved in my local guild and felt encouraged to dig through my stuff for something I've made in the last year to enter. It was a challenge because mostly I give stuff away to family or friends or I wear it and it looks all sad and worn but here is what I put in the show...

This one was hard to photograph, it's such a dark purple. Anyway it's a singles yarn I spun from Wensleydale top. It's very shiny and pretty as yarn, I knitted up a sample of it and it doesn't look good as knitted fabric. I don't really know what to do with it because it looks so nice as yarn...I was thinking of maybe weaving with it and using some really thin yarn for the weft so that you can still see the structure of the yarn. If you have an idea. Any suggestions are welcome!

This is some yarn I spun from a Romney fleece I bought from Sky Lines Farms and dyed with indigo. I have a lot more to spin, it will become a blanket. I hope I finish it soon, it's already cold again!

After reading Jacey Bogg's article in the last Spin Off & my new favorite book The Intentional Spinner by Judith Mackenzie McCuin I decided to try to make a boucle yarn with some naturally grey mohair & some mohair that I dyed black.

It won me a 1st place!

Last I entered a handwoven shawl, it's pretty simple actually just tabby. It has a mixed warp of mohair, rayon, & silk. Which also took a blue ribbon!

Next year I'm going to try to be more intentional in my entries. I'll actually save some of the things I make during the year for the purpose of fair entry.

My guild also has several other activities at the faire, a sheep to shawl event, a booth (that won a blue ribbon), a spinning contest. I was able to attend the sheep to shawl but I didn't get any pictures because I forgot my camera : ( it was fun though, several spinners get together and spin away getting the yarn ready to be woven by a weaver into a shawl which is then auctioned off for charity.

Also while I was there I bought 2 fleeces even though I swore I would not, they were just to good to pass up.

One is a Romney (I needed more for my blanket anyway). Isn't it pretty?

The other is a Corriedale (I've already washed this one)...also very pretty!

I failed to mention that the singles yarn I made in the dark purple was also because I was inspired by the Intentional Spinner, I really wanted to make a good thick single. This book is so fabulous I think all spinners should have it in their library. Go out and buy it!

A better shot of the purple single...I took it out back and put it on the Tiki bar

Why I haven't posted on the Blog

Maybe this is just an excuse but here goes! I've been having a lot of pain in my wrist and I really want to be using my wrist for knitting, spinning, weaving etc. and I've found that the computer makes it really really bad. So that's that...but here I am again with one small update!

Here is some yarn I spun that will be going into a poncho for Riley...I hope there's enough or I'll be dyeing and spinning more!

Froggy colors!