I finally made a cover for my Hot Mess of a dress from. I re-padded it with the correct measurements and pinned a rose gold tape to it for measurement lines. People were walking in my house and saying, “what the heck is that thing!” It was time for some beautification!!
I finally update my eye-sore of a dress form. Prior to this, I had always used a duct tape body from. If you haven’t had a chance to see my previous dress form, you can read about this HERE. But now it was time for an update.
TIME FOR AN UPDATE
Recently I purchased one of these “adjustable dress forms” at Joann’s for 50 percent off. Why??? Because I realized that my body had changed shaped, and the duct tape dress form was no long working well. The adjustable body forms are great, because as you lose or gain weight, you can just adjust the dials. Also, it’s important to pad them and fill them in areas where your you may be fuller, like the bust and hips. I am really full in my bust area, and my shoulders are also very broad, but my hips tend to be very narrow compared to the rest of my body. So for me, I padded the top using an old bra, as well as shoulder pads, and quilt batting to fill in other areas.
I had originally just padded the dress form and covered it with saran wrap to keep everything in place, however, now it was falling apart and people would come into my house and ask weird questions–things got awkward, and I was bored, so it was time to make a cover!
COVERING THE STUFF
Sometimes you gotta just cover the stuff! I decided I needed to make a slip cover that was stretchy, but also beautiful! I used a stretch knit fabric i found at my local Joanns, and I very simply pinned it onto the dress form, and then sewed a zig zag seam up the back. Always use a zig zag or “stretch” type stitch when sewing on stretchy fabrics. If the fabric stretches, then so must the seam, or the threads will just pop and break.
MEASUREMENT LINES
I like to draw my own patterns (or even just pin the fabric to the dress form)–and so the best option for me is to have lots of lines to help me measure. I bought scrapbooking tape and pinned it down the body form. These help me make sure that I am centering my fabric well to the dress from in all the right areas. I used an entire box of pins (like 200). Symmetry is very important–just check out these lines on my recent creation HERE. Adding lines to your dress form makes symmetry a whole lot simpler. Simple details–like symmetry, separate a beautiful dress from a sloppily made one.