Chinese New Year This Weekend

Apparently this weekend is the Chinese New Year Celebrations in Dunedin, on Saturday evening. Presumably Chinese New Year is somewhere around this date. G and my Mum are part of the Japanese sword and other weapons demonstration at it. If you are confused already, they have stalls and various different Oriental cultural demonstrations to entertain the crowd and so on. The sword people are on at 2145, but times have been known to be, ummm, variable.
Also this weekend there may or may not be the Gypsy fair in the oval. Not entirely sure about that one yet.
So, for the Chinese New Year, to make it more fun, I clearly need to dress up some how or wear some new clothes. Luckily I have a pattern for a Chinese style top or dress and some gold Chinese brocade material sitting at home. So I could whip that up by Saturday. Never mind that I wouldn't have the opportunity to fit it properly and that Chinese brocade frays horribly and shifts all over the place when you try and lay it out and pin it and sew it.

Page about the cheongsam - my pattern is like the collared dresses, and includes a shortened version as a top. This page says the cheongsam, or qipao, suits and flatters the Chinese woman's figure. This is probably true, but now that I consider the idea, I recall that it is unlikely to flatter and suit the average Western figure. So that's why I'll go for a top instead of a dress until I have time to properly fit it and fiddle with it and find out that it doesn't work.

I can't find any pictures similar to the cheap and nasty gold brocade I have, but I might take a picture sometime...

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