Category: Publications

Books, Articles, Patterns and Writing Projects by Dawn Devine ~ Davina

Categories
Assiut/Assuit Belly Dance General Publications

Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut – Outtakes of Malia DeFelice

While we were taking the photos for the book The Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut, we held more than 30 photoshoots, and our models were so amazing, that we often had a difficult time selecting the images for the book.  Malia DeFelice is a dance and style icon.  She possesses impeccable taste, glamorous beauty, and timeless belly dance style that slides through the worlds of American Cabaret, North African Berber Dances, Egyptian Folklore and more.  Her breath of style and depth of knowledge on dance has made her an inspiration for dancers throughout the Greater Bay Area!   Find out More about Malia, her classes and upcoming performances on her website.  Hot Tip – check out her gallery for more fantastic images of her costuming.  Interested in seeing more?  Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut is available here on my website and over at Amazon.com.

Malia DeFelice in Vintage Assiut
Malia DeFelice in Vintage Assiut Ensemble
Categories
Assiut/Assuit Belly Dance Costuming DIY Design General Publications

“The Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut” is Done!

I’m so pleased to announce that my book, The Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut is now available for sale for the introductory price of $29.95.   When the book is available on Amazon.com in late November, it will retail for $34.99.

Thank you all for sharing this amazing journey from concept to finished product!  I hope enjoy my book, I’m so very proud of it!

Dawn Devine ~ Davina

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Categories
Assiut/Assuit Publications

Book Reports: Cloth of Egypt – Proof #2

The second proof arrived!  And there was much rejoicing!  Now that the proof is in my hot little hands, I’m in the middle of fixing a bunch of issues – small issues – but in a 260 page book, there are a lot of them. We’re adding commas, taking out double spaces, and using proper italics to denote book titles are just to name a few!  The team of crack editors which includes a professional editor/copy writer, a tech support god, a crack librarian, a former school teacher, and my mom, are all going over a copy of the book hunting for the rogue typo’s, poorly formed sentences, and other problems.   I’m estimating 3 weeks for the editors to go through their copies, get them back to me, and for us to get the edits into place in the publication.  We are REALLY close to done!

The-Cloth-Of-Egypt-Cover-WEB

The cover is finalized and approved – with Her Royal Highness, Princess Farhana of Hollywood on the back cover wearing a bra made from modern assiut and dripping in a vintage assiut shawl.  Alisha Westerfeld took this photo during a super-fast 15 minute photo shoot on the Queen Mary Ship in the Observation Bar.  Using existing light, and dodging tour groups, we managed to get this amazing shot!  One tour guide, seeing the Princess in her glorious makeup and wrapped in assiut, told his group that she was actually a ghost!  The lovely 1930’s era decor made for an amazing, and quite appropriate, backdrop for the vintage cloth.  Find out more about Princess Farhana on her website.

Davina-Repair-Assiut-Detail-WEB

It turns out that there are some photos that didn’t quite make the grade in quality.  We have to find replacements for about half a dozen images, and we’ve got holes for another 20 or so more.  So we’re sorting, selecting, prepping about 25-30 images.  We have another 60 or so that need contrast adjustments to appear perfect in the final publication.  Like the image above, I’m working on making the final few fixes and then the work will be complete!  Now, if only it were as easy as threading up a needle and repairing a split in vintage assiut cloth.  But as you can see in the image below, of 12 pages, 6 spreads, the book is looking less like a random collection of text and pictures, and more like the cohesive publication it will be in a matter of weeks.

If you haven’t signed up for my mailing list –  now is the time!  I’ll be sending out a discount code for the book via my mailing list when the project is done!

Now, I’ve gotta get back to work!

~ Dawn

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Categories
Assiut/Assuit Belly Dance Costuming DIY Publications

Book Report: The Cloth of Egypt Status – We’re Almost Done!

COE-Section2-2spreadsHello Gang!

The Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut is nearing completion and I’m so happy to be closing in on the end of this project!    I’m in the final week of layouts.  Next step: Editing!   Right now, the book is sitting in that 250-260 page mark, each day that I work on the final layouts, it goes up a spread or down a spread depending on the flow of the content and images.  I think we’re four weeks from being absolutely complete!   The next phase of the book production includes sending the book out to our editors, collecting the edited documents, integrating edits into the final book, and then ordering proofs from the printer.  It’s a multi-week process and the end is definitely in sight!

The screen shots below represent 12 spreads taken at random from the four major sections of the book. As you can see, it’s filled with images that support the information. My co-author, Alisha Westerfeld has done an outstanding job with the bulk of the images, and along with a handful of extraordinarily talented photographers, this publication has become a visual delight.

Ultimately, I want this book to be a really good value when you pick it up!  I’m so very proud of how far I’ve come, and I’m looking forward to sharing the finished book with you soon!  At this point, the book release will be sometime between August 20 and Sept 15, depending on the speed of my editors, the efficiency of the proofing process with the printer, and as long as their are no major glitches, your copy will be available soon!

So enjoy this sneak peek!
Thanks for joining me on this adventure!

~ Dawn Devine ~ Davina

ps – Remember, you can email me if you have questions – davina@davina.us
pps – I’m really looking forward to getting back to blogging on a regular basis – I have so many projects to share with you that didn’t even MAKE it into the book.  As soon as we hit “print,” I’ll be back at work here on Costumer’s Notes!  Until then – Happy Costuming!  ~ D

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Section 1

Section 2

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Section 4

Categories
Assiut/Assuit Publications

The End is In Sight! The book, The Cloth of Egypt nears completion!

Assiut-BlogPost-June2014Hello Gang!

When I started working intensively on “The Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut,” I envisioned a 125-140 page book that reveled in the glory of this magnificent cloth.  Commonly called assiut (or one of its numerous alternative spellings including assuit, assiout, asyut, etc. etc.) but  known as tally, telli, or tilli in Egypt, throughout North Africa, and across the Middle East.  The book has grown – expanded to about 260 pages – thanks to the generosity of my backers over on Kickstarter!  They allowed me to purchase image rights and ephemera to illustrated the history chapter that blossomed from a mere 12 pages of text to a lavishly illustrated 60+ pages with historic images that tell the story of assiut cloth between 1900 and 1940.

I’m just a few images away from completing the layout of the book – and then I’m moving onto the painful process of placing the text and then making the final edits on the project.   We are now so close to publication, that I can taste it!   So I thought I would share a little taste with you.  I haven’t placed the words yet, but here are just a few of the spreads.  In these 10 pages, 5 spreads, you can get a sense of the layout, the quality of the images, and the general look.

Be sure to sign up for the mailing list.  When the book is completed, newsletter members will get a notification, and a discount code for purchasing the first 200 copies.

And now, I’m diving back into the layout process. Today it’s another 10 images of lovely dancers to crop, convert to black and white, adjust the contrast, and.. and.. and… With luck, the layout will be complete by this Friday!

I look forward to returning to blogging on a regular basis as soon as we hit send on the final version and it hits the presses!