Medal Ball

Yesterday was the Arthur Murray Spring Medal Ball. It was a lot of fun. Since Mosquito was in San Diego running his marathon, The Punkin was my date for the day. I danced in two heats -- cha cha and tango. I slipped a bit on the slippery floor during my crossover breaks in the cha cha, but recovered fine. Other than that I think I did well. I have to schedule my consultation with the judges to see what they had to say. I'm still registered for Bronze 1 even though I've been giving the green light to test out and move on to Bronze 2.

My dress got several comments. I wish I'd taken before pictures. I did quite a bit of altering to it. I just can't bring myself to wear strapless or even sleeveless dresses. I just have way too much loose skin that hangs out in really strange and not attractive places. So, I have come up with some creative ways to add sleeves to a sleeveless dress. The last medal ball I just wore a shirt under my dress and safety pinned it all together to produce this:

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It looked great from the front, the back didn't look all that cool.

So, this time around, I actually made my dress into a sewing project. I really wish I'd thought to take some before photos of the dress and the shirt I started with and photos of the process itself. I was in such a hurry to get started that I didn't even think to do it.

The top was just a satiny V-neck babydoll top, similar in style to this one, but in a green/white/black animal print mixture.



I removed the stitches to take the top and bottom of the shirt apart. So, what I ended up with was sleeves and a neckline with the bulk of the fabric removed. I found the middle of the back and cut the top in half. so I have 2 pieces, each with a sleeve and half of the neckline.

The dress was a strapless dress in a light icy blue color. It had some ties in the back that I carefully cut off. I pinned one tie to each of the top halves, following the neckline in the front and folded over the raw cut edges of the back of the top and pinned it to the satin tie. Now, I pinned each sleeve to the dress itself, matching the front opening with the front seams in the dress and in the back, I angled the satin ties a bit right next to each side of the zipper so that it made almost a V in the back. The ties increases in width and I used the narrowest part in the front and the wider part in the back. I ended up doing some tucking in the front as well. But I think it looked great. I had to hand sew the entire thing because I was attaching it to areas that would show. So that took a while. The dress also has gathered satin at the waist that was the same material as the ties I had cut off. I had intended to use some of the excess material from the top to create a couple of stripes within the waistband, just to help tie the dress and top together a bit better, but by the time I was done with the sewing it was after 4am and I was falling asleep. So, if I decide to wear that dress again in the future, I'll think about doing it then.

Here are some pictures taken at the Medal Ball so you can see the dress in action. I'm very proud of the creation I made. Especially since it was all so very last minute. I bought the dress and top at Nordstrom Rack around 2pm on Saturday and had the dress modifications done in time to wear the next day.


This was a very delicate cha cha crossover break after almost falling on my butt during the first one.

Tango shadow rocks. Do you like my serious tango face? haha My right arm should have better styling also.


A shot of the back of my dress.