Tuesday 1 September 2015

Dressform Adjusting

I started my 30-day challenge in a bit of a round about way.

With wanting to base my Norse dress on the Hedeby tailored look, there's going to be a lot of fitting involved, and trying to fit a dress onto one's own form can be an exercise in sheer frustration. I do have an adjustable dressmakers form, but it was bought so long ago that even at it's greatest extension, it can't match the curves I sport these days. So changed had to be made.

I picked up a couple of metres of 4ox batting from my local fabric store, and got to work sewing it on in layers until it matched, or was close enough to, my current measurements. And then I applied a bit of trickery.

The half finished form, you may notice, is a bit flat on front. I was concerned you see, seeing as I do several different eras of costume, how adjustable something stiff like a batting stuff bra might be on the form. So I opted to follow an idea of American Duchess's, and installed bean boobs!

I used about 1.5kg of pearl barley as I had it to hand already for a leather working project, and an old pair of tights from an old costume, and voilà, adjustable boobs!

To finish, I slipped a cheap t-shirt over the top to help everything stay in place and make the batting a little more resilient to pin-abuse. And now that I have a dress form that's a curvy shortarse just like me,  I'll finally be able to get on with all those draped projects I've wanted to do!

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