My form was finished off with a muslin cover that I made without much thought other than fit. The cover allows me to pin to the form with no problem and makes Eve (the name of my form) less of a biological display in my Florida room where she is usually standing.
I inserted some poly fil between the form and cover in places to correct a couple of problems that I created by handling the form too much while it was still damp. The back shoulders needed to be fluffed out and one boob was out of synch.
As she stands now Eve measures as an exact duplicate of my odd body. She has a 17" back waist measurement, a 14" shoulder measurement, a 38" bust measurement, and a 27" waist measurement. I am 5'3" tall so although my narrow shoulder measurement is not unusual for my height, my back waist and bust measurements are not standard in ready made forms that would have worked with my narrow shoulders.
If you can use a standard form, do it. This project was long and tedious because I wanted the form to be exact for me so I could get a good idea about how a particular design would look on me. I also wanted to be able to avoid any personal fitting during a sewing project. Eve fits my needs although I wish I had taken better care to mark the form properly so draping would be easier.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Making your own dress form
From time to time I will post pics of things displayed on my home made dress form. I built my own dress form after comparing my detailed body measurements to the ready made forms. It was obvious to me that the only way I was going to be able to use a form to serve as a proper fit dummy for my odd body was to either spend a couple of thousand dollars on a custom form - or build it myself. So, I decided to try building my own using some instructions I found on the Net.
I have reprinted below my email to Sister and Niece in August '07 about the project. You can see
pics of my project at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/pam.hebding/DressForm#
"OK creative girls- Here's the progress on my latest quest to build the perfect dress form. I used the instructions on these links:
http://sewnews.com/resources/library/0806form/index.html
http://www.sewnews.com/resources/library/0806stand/index.html
I let Bill wrap me in water activated tape until I could not take it anymore, then I made him cut me out. There are a lot of finishing touches to do, but I thought you might want some proof that a man, who cares very little about accuracy in anything other than a spreadsheet, can actually wrap you up and get you out alive. The only casualty was my underwear. Big slash in left butt cheek. No skin involved!!!
There are some things I would add to the great instructions in Sew News:
If you are going to use water activated tape pre cut a ton of it in advance. (I could not find self stick kraft tape, so I used high quality water activated kraft tape) The other thing is that I think water activated tape will more closely act like paper mache (stronger than any self stick tape). Since the best forms are paper mache, I thought it was worth the extra aggravation of wetting the tape. Of course, I could be totally wrong.
Put two sponges in a pyrex shallow dish with lots of water to moisten the tape.
Get the tape really wet.
You will need lots of strips equal to ½ of your hip measurement plus 4 inches.
Also, precut a bunch of 1 inch wide strips for the bust area. Round boobs can not be wrapped by 2" tape!
Do not do this project after eating a big Mexican food meal like I did. Actually, that's probably a plus so you can wear your designs after a Mexican meal, but the body form will look bloated.
Sarah- The bandage scissors are a real MUST. Getting cut out of this thing was not easy, and the transition from waist to hips and underneath your butt will require careful cutting!
Put on super comfortable shoes if you are going to get wrapped because standing still really takes a toll on your feet.
It is best to get wrapped by someone that is neat and cheerful.
When you cut the form off immediately use some duct tape to the inside of the cut shoulder to reconnect it. The paper tape doesn't really like to stick to the plastic bag liner.
This is not a 1 hour project.
Sarah- the tape requirement estimate is about right. If you decide to do this write down the amount of tape you need in feet and yards so the in-store math is not too hard. My total cost of materials for the stand and form is about $45.
I suspect that using this form will accommodate ½ of the design ease in all measurements. I can't wait to get her to the point that I can put something on her that really fits me well to find out if I am right! "
I have reprinted below my email to Sister and Niece in August '07 about the project. You can see
pics of my project at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/pam.hebding/DressForm#
"OK creative girls- Here's the progress on my latest quest to build the perfect dress form. I used the instructions on these links:
http://sewnews.com/resources/library/0806form/index.html
http://www.sewnews.com/resources/library/0806stand/index.html
I let Bill wrap me in water activated tape until I could not take it anymore, then I made him cut me out. There are a lot of finishing touches to do, but I thought you might want some proof that a man, who cares very little about accuracy in anything other than a spreadsheet, can actually wrap you up and get you out alive. The only casualty was my underwear. Big slash in left butt cheek. No skin involved!!!
There are some things I would add to the great instructions in Sew News:
If you are going to use water activated tape pre cut a ton of it in advance. (I could not find self stick kraft tape, so I used high quality water activated kraft tape) The other thing is that I think water activated tape will more closely act like paper mache (stronger than any self stick tape). Since the best forms are paper mache, I thought it was worth the extra aggravation of wetting the tape. Of course, I could be totally wrong.
Put two sponges in a pyrex shallow dish with lots of water to moisten the tape.
Get the tape really wet.
You will need lots of strips equal to ½ of your hip measurement plus 4 inches.
Also, precut a bunch of 1 inch wide strips for the bust area. Round boobs can not be wrapped by 2" tape!
Do not do this project after eating a big Mexican food meal like I did. Actually, that's probably a plus so you can wear your designs after a Mexican meal, but the body form will look bloated.
Sarah- The bandage scissors are a real MUST. Getting cut out of this thing was not easy, and the transition from waist to hips and underneath your butt will require careful cutting!
Put on super comfortable shoes if you are going to get wrapped because standing still really takes a toll on your feet.
It is best to get wrapped by someone that is neat and cheerful.
When you cut the form off immediately use some duct tape to the inside of the cut shoulder to reconnect it. The paper tape doesn't really like to stick to the plastic bag liner.
This is not a 1 hour project.
Sarah- the tape requirement estimate is about right. If you decide to do this write down the amount of tape you need in feet and yards so the in-store math is not too hard. My total cost of materials for the stand and form is about $45.
I suspect that using this form will accommodate ½ of the design ease in all measurements. I can't wait to get her to the point that I can put something on her that really fits me well to find out if I am right! "
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