Quick dress form adjustment

9/18/2013

I'm in the middle of something right now. Something I can't talk about at this point.

So I am posting a quick blog about a quick thing I did to get to work on the thing I can't talk about yet.

I needed to enlarge my dress form from a bust of 35" to 37" and waist 26" to 30". I'm not going to worry about the hips, since the garments I'm making don't fit close around the hips and I will have 2 or 3 fittings with the model.

Materials used, one bra, about a yard of polyester felt cut into 3"-4" strips, straight pins and 2 shoulder pads.

Gotta get to work!

6 Comments

Jehanni

9/17/2013 09:49:55 pm

I have one of the adjustable dress forms (I call her Dolley, after Dolley Madison, Quaker-turned-clothes-horse-1st-lady) that has the dial-wheels in the center of the segments, so in theory I can spread or shrink my form to reach the right measurements--but of course, the "cracks" fall right where I want to pin into Dolley when I'm fitting. I'll bet wrapping a layer or two of felt around her would heal that problem. The bra can resolve her issue of maintaining nearly B's even though I want to dial her up to match my double D's. Dolley and I thank you for the inspirational pics!

Andrea Schewe

9/17/2013 11:32:13 pm

You and Dolley are welcome. That is Matilda you are looking at. I waltz with her from time to time. She was purchased in 1982 when a ready to wear 10 was 35-26-36 haha

Tara Nesbitt

9/18/2013 12:23:22 am

Great post! I always have trouble fitting my costumes on my dress form as her breasts are much higher than mine and she has no backside to speak of! lol How do you go about transferring measurements from yourself to your dressform when the waist, breast, etc are not in the right place?

Andrea Schewe

9/18/2013 04:55:24 am

That's not a quick fix. What kind of form do you have? And how permanent do you want the change to be??
My first thought is saw off the bust and put on a bra where you like it??
But I don't know what you've got.

Sarah Strong

10/2/2013 01:31:00 am

I've often meant to do a proper padding and cover for my dress form. It's a really old one I got for $15 at a yard sale, made in several pieces of molded paper? sort of cardboardy, stuff... each piece is attached to the central pole and to each other, in such a way that you can expand/contract it a bit. Leaving gaps between them. And at the neck, the attachments are all stacked, so there's about a quarter inch or so unevenness at one shoulder. A layer of batting and a nice snug muslin cover would go a long way to making her more presentable and more accurate!

Natalie

10/21/2013 04:07:22 am

I love this!!! Thanks for sharing ... Now I know how to fix my dress form

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From Andrea

I am a commercial pattern maker who is now "sewing over 50"!
I love to sew and hope to encourage others to come back to sewing.
The water is fine!!

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