I got to work on a 30s evening gown!

Even Brian was excited for me.

A friend came over with a recent purchase from the Santa Monica vintage expo and it was just lovely.

One of those long flowing evening gowns from the late 30s that we all gasp at the sight of.

The gown was a powder pink underdress with a tiered lace overdress. It was lovely. There were a few small unravelings in the construction, but she came to me because the dress was too long.

Silly me, at first I was going to chop off the bottom tier of the skirt, but then she had the idea of shortening it from the top their. DUH! Why didn't I think of that!

The dress needed to be shortened by a good 6 inches and straightened because it drooped in the front by an inch or more. What I did first was see how the tiers were attached to one another. The good thing was, a lot of the hems were simple straight stitching, so I would be able to do the same. I leveled the skirt once I detached the tiers and ran a stitch around to not only mark the hem, but also give some reinforcement to the tier.

Once that was taken care of, I had to deal with the silk under dress. The good thing about that was the underdress was actually straight so I simply took off the 6". But there was a surprise for me.

A bias cut buckram stiffener for the skirt. Ha! That's how these amazing gowns seemed so weightless. I can't believe I didn't think of that.

The buckram was simply straight stitched to the inside of the underdress. the lace covers the stitch. Same for the underdress hem, and you all know how much I hate straight stitching a hem! But hey, it was period correct! *smile*

Here is the final, hem straightened and shortened.

Don't she look amazing! Yay vintage!!