A Tale of 2 Salsa Party dresses: Part I

I'm feeling so restless right now!  Mainly because it's been an extremely busy week. There was so much going on and now that it's Friday I finally get to decompress. Secondly, I have 2 dresses to make for an upcoming birthday party in 3 weeks. I'm conspiring with friends and co-workers to throw a 40th "Salsa Themed" Birthday party for a well loved friend and co-worker. My gift to her is to make her birthday dress and to style her from head to toe. She's a lovely girl and I consider it such a privilege.  She wanted a dress that would be fun, flirty, and birthday worthy. Well I've been mulling over ideas for the last couple of weeks and after much consideration arrived at the following pattern and fabric choices.

This pattern fit the bill!!! She wanted a cute knit halter dress that would provide sex appeal and comfortable wear. She'd be able to dance the night away in this dress in style. I can testify to the comfort of this dress because I made it myself last year. I plan to make her version D which is the short red dress pictured above. This is the fabric I plan to use....

The party colors are red, black, and white and this print fabric is perfect. The fabric itself is a peachskin (it feels fabulous) with I think 20% stretch which I just purchased on sale at Fabric.com. I have exactly 2 yards of fabric, 1/4 yard more than the pattern requires. So I really don't have any extra. If anyone out there in "web land" has this fabric from Fabric.com and wouldn't mind selling me some please let me know!!! Even 1 yard would help GREATLY!!! Anyway, that's all I'm going to say about this dress right now. I'll keep you posted as I progress with this dress. Next week we're doing fittings. I love working with clients:)

Earlier I mentioned that I had 2 Salsa dresses to make. Well I introduced you to the Birthday Girl's dress. Well I've got one to make for myself. A party invite automatically means I get to make myself a fancy dress. I'm pretty excited about that. I finally made it through planning for the Birthday Girl so I could finally focus on myself. I wracked my brain for a minute and ran through a bunch of ideas. I ran across this pattern and it stuck.  I decided to go with Vogue 1207.

I like this dress ALOT!!!! It's all about the print, sleeves, and plunging back neckline. I plan to modify the pattern a bit by raising the back neckline a smidge so I can wear a bra with it plus I'll nix the pockets.  I usually go the route of a fitted dress but I'm excited to go a little short and sexy---yet still look decent enough to be called "the Wee-One's" Mama! LOL! I'm curious to see how I'll look in it.

I picked this fabric that I've been holding for another dress but thought it would work wonderfully.

 The only thing is it photographs beautifully in natural light but looks blah indoors. But hopefully you can kinda see it's beauty. It's a charmeuse with hues of gold, various shades of brown, and gray. It's beautiful. I may look around for another fabric, but it would have to be phenomenal to beat out what I've already got.

So this the story on the two dresses in the pipeline. I'll keep you posted. I'm hoping the process to be fun and to have great results. Keep your fingers crossed for me!!!!