The LBD, a 50's restyle

 Before I do too much permanent damage to the LBD (!) I decided last night to pin an idea together and get the only opinions that really count, the boyfs and the 10yr olds  ;o)

After dinner, pesto pasta – an obsession of mine, the boyf and the 10yr old helped me fold my several yards of tulle onto thirds, which I quickly pinned together… as the 10yr olds arms were threatening to “fall off!”

I hand gathered the full length of the tulle (I’ve tried machine gathering in the past with mixed results as it can sometimes catch and tear) and loosely pinned it in place at the waist of the dress.  It was immediately apparent that waist height was too low, so I moved it up to a low empire-line.

After a great deal of fussing with a piece of leftover taffeta; I decided, for now, on a simple, wide waistband.  It could look good with a cummerbund front; or, if I can find a pattern, I may look at the curved 50s style waistbands.

Left to hang straight, the tulle didn’t look right (the boyf was right on this one!) so I pinned it in rosettes at various points along the dress hem.  I will have to rework the original skirt; it’s handstitched onto the bust to create shape and an uneven hem; this will all have to be unpicked and the hem shortened.

Boyf also thinks that the bustline should be simpler, and my pinning of the existing chiffon is not simple enough!  This could be tricky to sort in the timeframe though; I am going to have to do a lot of very careful unpicking, remove some more boning (without compromising the rest of the bust) and I have a sneaking suspicion that I may regret it all!  Investigating further is tonight’s job…

One half up, one half down... I think the boyfs right, but it's going to be tricky.

As it is, once it was on with a very cute pair of bow-front satin heels, it looked like a definite possibility.  Far more so than the prospect of spending my lunch hours and most of next Saturday trawling dress shops and feeling grumpy!  As it is, I have till Friday night, and then I can still trawl on Saturday if needs be.