Recently, I bought an antique dress form on ‘Marktplaats’. It took me a month to pick it up as it was literally across the country, but by the start of October I managed to get it home. It did take a few hours in public transport with the unexpected train replacing bus service in the middle, but we got there in the end. I really love it, it’s got such a nice shape! However, as the dress form is quite old, not all of the fabric has survived the century or so it has been in existence. Therefore, I decided to make her a new cover.
All the seamlines were drawn out on tissue paper while making sure the grainlines made some sense. Then those seven pattern pieces (neck, upper front, lower front, center back, side back and lower back) were transferred onto some cotton that has been in the hoard for a little bit. I made sure to put in the seamlines and sewed the cover together. It fit pretty decently first time around, which did surprise me a little. I did have to take in a number of the seams, but nothing was horrendously off. The only bit that was quite difficult was the center front at the armhole area, which wasn’t too strange because it had two darts in it and getting those to work wasn’t trivial.
The new cover is a lot lighter in colour than the original, but I think it worked pretty well. I’m quite proud that I managed to get the seam lines to work and the cover to fit quite nicely. While I’m not even close to her measurements – that waist is seriously tiny – she does fit my clothes somehow. So now I have an Edwardian lady in my living room hanging out with her pet dragon.
Not sure how, but my entire Edwardian outfit seems to fit her!
I sewed a dress form shaped like myself. It’s very tropical.
Years and years ago, I asked my parents for a dress form for my birthday. I chose one of those adjustable ones, but when it arrived, I wasn’t happy with it, so it got returned. Then I tried to make a duct tape dress form with my dad. That didn’t go very well either. Both because it was very crooked and because we made a mistake with the foam we put in. So the dress form plans got put on hold. I googled regularly for forms that could be like me. But since I’m short and not necessarily averagely proportioned, it was not easy to find. I didn’t really want to take the route of padding out a form. Earlier this year I found some videos and blogs about a BootstrapFashion made to measure dress form pattern. That seemed to be the solution. This project was involved, and as such this is a long post.
Front
Back
After weeks of agonizing about it, I decided to take the plunge and ordered the pattern. This involved first taking a bunch of measurements and putting them into the system. You can choose to order a free preview, which is what I should have done. I didn’t, and immediate ordered the pattern. This meant that I probably had to do more alterations that would have been necessary had I first previewed. I probably would have ordered one with slightly less ‘belly protuberance’ than I did now. However, what was done was done and I figured my pattern adjusting skills were up to a high enough level that I could fumble my way to a decent end result.
Right side
Left side
Then came the task of collecting all the necessary bits. The pattern calls for fabric (some off cut of curtain that I already had in hoard) stabilized with woven interfacing, which I got from the local shop. Stable fabric for the inner support that was some denim that I cannot remember getting. For the stand, I chose to go with scaffolding pipes and for the ‘over pipe’ some form of plumbing pipe. The neck required a sponge from the hardware store, and the arms and bottom needed cardboard that I got from one of the boxes that came via the mail. It’s filled with about a kg of fiberfill and there are two zippers from the hoard.
Pipe, stand and filling
Inner supports
On to the actual sewing. It wasn’t very difficult to put together initially. The order of operations is mostly fairly clearly explained in the instructions. I finalized it all, and started stuffing it. I got about halfway down and decided that it wasn’t.. well.. me. It’s boobs were too deep. Effectively, the distance between the underbust and the waist was too short. It also had some real hunchback of the Notre Dame vibes. Conclusion, I had to make some adjustments.
The bag on the right is the original. About 1/3rd was stuffed into the form – that’s the bag on the left…
Lots of scratches along the way
I started with taking measurements of myself and of the dress form as it was at the time. Then I spent an inordinate amount of time hunched over a light pad attempting to transfer those measurements to bits of paper. The main changes were that I needed to raise the underbust, reduce the cup size, reduce the belly and reduce the hunch-back. This meant that just about all body pattern pieces needed adjustments. Since I’d already sewn the whole thing together, I wasn’t going to take out the neck or the arms or the bottom. Some ehm, creative sewing needed to happen.
Really awkward sewing
Lots of pins
One of the measurements that the pattern calls for is the underbust. I raised the underbust by about 2.7 cm, but the original pattern widens above the underbust. This meant that I needed to shave down all the pattern pieces that had underbust on them such that the underbust measurement matched again. For the back, I took in the center back to reduce the hump and also cut of some of the inner support for the same purpose, apart from that, the back was fine.
Original (left) and altered (right) bust cup pattern pieces
The front however.. Every one of the six pieces (upper center front, upper side front, center bust cup, side bust cup, lower center front and lower side front) needed serious adjustment. My changes included shifting the seam between the top center front and side center front 1 cm towards the center front. Reducing the depth of the cups by about 3-ish centimeters and shifting the seam at the top. Increasing the attachment seam of the cups at the lower fronts but not shifting the seam there. In the end I also took the center front seam in by a decent amount because it had too much of a belly. I shaved bits of the inner support to make it less belly-heavy.
The bottom is pretty nicely finished with two zippers that still allow acces to the pipe.
Having made all those changes on paper, I then had to transfer them to the tropical me. Keeping in mind that my fabric was limited and that I didn’t want to put the arms or neck back in again, I decided to perform surgery. I prepared a bust piece that had the bust cups, the upper fronts until about 2 centimeters below the armhole and the lower fronts until the waistline. I opened up the side seams, sewed the new bust on and cut out the old one. Stitched the new underbust line in place along the back and called it a day. After anxiously stuffing her again I was much much happier. My operation had been successful!
Comparison front
Comparison side
Comparison back
One way to test this was to put a very formfitting garment on myself and then on the tropical me to see if it fit about the same on both of us. I chose a red mermaid dress that I finished a decently long while ago and apparently never wrote about? The other was to just take some side by side pictures. So I did that too.
Actual me It’s the arms that made me recognize the difference
Tropical me
All in all, most of the pattern was very good. The one issue with the bust was one that I had spotted on a lot of other finished projects before, so I wasn’t too surprised about it. I’ve now adjusted my pattern enough that I can make a new one with a lot less surgery. I’m expecting to do that at some point. Now I can put projects on this form without having to undress myself all the time. Another benefit, with this lovely tropical me in the living room, I now also have an easily accessible huggable object close by. Success!
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