Making my Dress Form

As a hobby seamstress, I have this unquenchable thirst for flashy sewing accessories. For example, I worked one season as a stitcher at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, MO and got to use some awesome machines such as a serger, a really expensive Bernina, and an endless supply of dress forms. Adjustable dress forms, one-size dress forms, dress forms with legs...you get the idea. I was in a sower's heaven (is it sower or sewer?) Unfortunately all of these bells and whistles cost way more money than I can ever dream of dropping at any one time. Instead I have my handy Brother sewing machine my parents went halves on with me for my undergraduate graduation present on. That sewing machine has survived three overseas trips and is currently living with me in New Zealand. I also have the use of a Bernina Bernette 65 until my FSIL decides to move back to NZ and claim it. Thanks Charlotte!

I drool over the dress forms available at Spotlight every time I go there but I still can't imagine dropping that much cash for something that still won't be my exact measurements.

Now with my wedding dress drawn up, I realize I really cannot possibly drape, pleat and fit my dress the way I have been doing all this for the last 10 years- by myself on myself. Uh-uh...not happening. So we made a dress form at home. We didn't take photos in the process of taping me up (mostly because they would have been incredibly inappropriate since I couldn't find any shorts to wear and the tape pulled the shirt up higher than it was supposed to. But here's the run-down of what we did:

1. I put on a shirt and covered my neck and collarbone area with plastic wrap.

2. Jeff used three rolls of tape to capture my figure. The first roll of tape was plain packing tape. The next two were duct tape.

3. We underestimated how much tape it would take, and Jeff went and found electricians tape to finish out the body-taping job.

4. By this point there wasn't enough tape covering my collarbones, but we were out and I couldn't breathe deeply because of how tight the tape job was.

5. Jeff cut me out of the tape shirt Phew, I could breathe again!

6. We put my form over the homemade music stand Jeff had in the spare room and I left it for a day since we had no tape.

7. I went out and bought more tape and came home to finish the dress form.

8. I then covered my pretty form with some leftover fabric so I can pin to it.

9. I must have checked my measurements against the dress form 10 times...they're pretty close except for my overbust measurement. The dress form is about 4 inches broader there than I am in reality. But it's okay because the final fittings of my dress will be on me, not the form.

So am I happy with the work we did even though it's a bit trashy and not quite right? Yes because what I need this form for is to drape and look at pieces before I sew...and that's what I can do with Betsy (I just gave her that name...she needs a name, right?)