So remember that dress I had on my mannequin over here?
The one that used to fit me perfectly, but now won't fit her or me? (we discovered the joys of cooking with butter... oops)
Well... I made it fit. I didn't change my body (although I should start exercising, blogging is a sedentary sport, and so is sewing), I just changed the dress! The 1950's housewife that lovingly sewed this dress for herself also was very neat, and trimmed and finished all the interior seams. This meant I couldn't enlarge the dress. So I cut off the two bottom buttons, scooted them as close to the edge of the placket as possible, and restitched them. Then I added a hook and eye at the waist (it was gapping a little), snipped a bit of the placket lining below the waist and folded it out, and then added a snap to the snipped open placket and a snap to the interior waistline. That way if it gaps a little at the waist, you don't see any skin, the opened-out placket hides that. It's not an ideal situation, but it works, and until I can quit making baked goods and fried foods my main food groups, it will have to do.
Here's how it turned out! Yay for Jimmy-rigged 60-year-old-dresses that fit again!
P.S. You haven't forgotten about the giveaway... have you?
P.P.S. My lovely friend Kitty over at Fritzi Marie is having a giveaway of her own! Check it out!
I have been wanting one of those awesome dressform mannequins for ages, but I just can't seem to come up with the $300 to buy a new one, or the $300-$600 to buy a really cool vintage one. Left with the quandary of wanting what I can't have, I devised a solution: make one. That's my life's greatest theme. If you need it, make it. I started out by making a very fashionable gown from plastic bags. I then showed J this tutorial and explained to him what we were going to do and how we were going to do it. He protested slightly, but one dirty look from me was enough to quell his complaining. After I was sufficiently plastic-wrapped, J began to wrap me in layers of paper tape. Since we had never done this before, the first layers did not go on as smoothly or as evenly as they should, and we made the mistake of letting my "girls" get smooshed a little, and then NOT cinching my tummy in! So I look flat chested with a tummy pooch. Fortunately, that's not my "normal" look. I just ate dinner!
It took about 2 hours to get me all wrapped up and dried, then we cut the form off (up the center back). I taped the back together, and added a few more layers to make everything smoother. I then used some biscuit-colored cotton jersey to create a cover for it. Since I didn't have a pattern (or any knowledge of draping, creating garment patterns, etc) I had to improvise by cutting pieces that looked right, and then pinning and hand sewing them in place. I ran a threaded rod through the form, stuffed it with wadded up pages from my Anthropologie catalog, and attached it to a base I made from some metal piping. I'm not 100% done yet though. I'll be adding casters to the bottom of the stand so it can be wheeled around, and I'll be painting the base and stand a lovely shade of blue. I'm also considering adding some chicken wire (painted black) sticking out of it, to make it have a caged bottom like some of the older ones.
In the future, here's what I'll do differently (use these tips if you make one!):
I'll SUCK IN when I'm being wrapped around the tummy. And maybe do sit-ups for a week beforehand. And maybe skip carbs.
I'll wear a wonder-bra. It's amazing how flat that tape can make you!
I'll use thinner strips of paper tape. We cut the strips in 1/2 lengthwise, but I think cutting them in 1/3's might have been even better.
I'll do it early in the afternoon. We started in the evening, and so it was pretty late when we finished.
I'll have a fan in the room. Three to four layers of paper tape over a trash bag gets HOT.
I'll make sure J isn't feeling crabby or wanting to do something else. Even if I have to bribe him with cookies. He wasn't really into it, so about halfway through he started complaining (loudly), practicing the adult version of "are we there yet?", and rushing. The rushing meant that the end product wasn't as smooth as it could have been. (Notice no rear views... by the time he reached my butt it was like a race to the finish. My dress form's butt looks like pea-gravel in pantyhose).
I'll spray the form inside and out with clear sealant to protect it. I'll also add extra layers of paper tape inside the form to the delicate areas like butt, bust, hips, that could be prone to being crushed.
I'll come up with some type of pattern so my dressform's cover doesn't make it look like Frankenform.
I'll spray my form with a light coating of adhesive spray before I add the cover, so that the cover clings to it and doesn't give me the dreaded "mono-boob".
Although there are a lot of things I will do differently for the next one, I am still proud of how this one turned out. It's not bad for a first attempt! And at about $56 for all of the supplies, the price wasn't too bad either. There was a lot of time invested in this though. It took 2 hours of being wrapped in tape, 3 hours of driving around to get all the supplies (all at different stores in different areas of town), about 6 hours of hand sewing to make the cover, and about an hour of assembly. And I still have to paint the base and add the chicken-wire cage to the bottom.
J was working on a video skit for YouTube while I was getting ready to be wrapped. If you'd like to see me wearing nothing but a trash bag, check out this video. I make a cameo somewhere in the middle:
P.S. Interesting tip! I just read a comment from someone on another site suggesting that pieces of thin batting or flannel be attached all over the form with spray glue before adding the cover. Then use a turtle-neck shirt that fits very snugly as the cover! It's easy to find one that fits right, just try it on in the store. If it's tight enough to make you look like a hoochie-mama it'll work. Once you have it on the form, tuck in the neck and sleeves, and add in wood pieces cut to fit the openings. You could just glue in the wood pieces. Or you could have a big wood cross-like shape inside the form, and screw the wooden arm caps into the two projecting sides of the cross, and screw the wooden neck cap into the top of the cross. You could then screw a piece of wood cut to fit the bottom of the form to the bottom of the cross shape. Then, it would be really easy to attach the drain-cover (which is attached to the stand and base) to the wooden bottom. Presto: perfection!
This week I had the idea to make a Matroyshka doll mini quilt. I love Matroyshka dolls, they're so sweet, so why not, right? She isn't quilted yet, and she doesn't have a face (but she will). I also made seven sisters for her, so she won't be lonely. I was able to use all scraps for this, which was awesome. I have way too many scraps right now! I also downloaded some alphabet templates and finally added the letters to my StarSparrow banner. I was a little bummed that I couldn't get it all on one line, but if I had made the letters smaller it wouldn't be as readable, so it works. I have to buy some more batting this week, and once I do I'll get it quilted and bound. This will hang at the back of my booth at shows. I also whipped this bunting up, using the same letter templates. This also needs batting and quilting, and once that's done I'll hang the letters all in a row from rope, using decoupaged clothespins. This will hang at the front of my booth/tent at shows. I've been wanting a dressmaker's form for as long as I've known what they were. I would especially love to have one to use as a display. However, brand new ones start at about $300, and really nice vintage ones routinely go for double that amount. I'd have to sell a TON of mini quilts to afford one of those! So I did some snooping around, and found several tutorials online for making dress forms out of various materials, and I think I hit on a winner. This week I'm going to attempt to make one. I'll let you know how it goes.
I have always wanted, desperately, to be able to paint. Unfortunately, although I feel that I am a talented textile artist, I was not blessed as a painter (and I am also not very good at drawings, other than those of the whimsical child-like variety). Although I cannot draw, and I cannot paint, I can collage. Which sort of makes me feel painter-ish. It's similar to this: I can't snap my fingers, so as a kid, whenever I would make the "snap" motion with my fingers, I would make a clicking noise with my tongue, so it sounded like snapping. These nest collages measure 4"x5", and they're my sort-of version of painting. I am very pleased with how they turned out, especially given that I can't draw or paint! Now this is a medium I know my way around... fabric! You may recognize the sparrow as the one in my banner. Yes, he made his way onto my first ever fabric design! It's available for purchase exclusively on Spoonflower. Here's the link! I turned them into hand-sewn plush brooches and used some of my treasured selvages (I keep all my selvages in a bag with the fantasy of one day using them to recover a settee) to give them the look of award ribbons. Here's a glimpse of the new mini quilt I'm working on. I'm going to call it Double Rainbow. If that title didn't make you grin, here's what you missed while you were living under a rock:
and of course, who could forget the song?:
So there you have it. Double Rainbow. All the way across the sky.
Okay, get ready for a giant explosion of color below. If you are like me, and find yourself short of breath and covered in a cold sweat at the sight of too much gorgeous fabric, now is the time to do your breathing exercises!
This Thursday I was so excited to spend with my girlfriend Jenni. I've known Jenni for 5 years (3 of those years I was her employee). It was so nice to see her and catch up! If you've never seen her work, click on the link above. She is such an incredibly talented painter, jewelry maker, and soft sculpture artist. Just an all around Renaissance woman! The photo above is of her lovely studio. The lighting is incredible! How could you not be inspired in that room?! We took a road trip to my favorite fabric store, Intown Quilters, in Atlanta. If you're ever in the Atlanta area, I highly recommend stopping by! We drooled over all of the Heather Ross, Amy Butler, Heather Bailey, Kokka, and other lovelies. Just look at the colors! On the ride up to Atlanta, I quizzed Jenni about her life as an artist, how she balances all of her responsibilities, and how she has achieved such success, It was very enlightening, and I took several pages of notes. I'm hoping that with her mentoring, I can turn my textile art into a lifelong career. For those of you looking to get your hands on some of the very rare and retired Heather Ross Mendocino fabrics, they have some (and they'll do phone orders and ship to you)! Just do me a favor... don't call and order a ton of it and then sell it at a markup on eBay. That's just not nice! Jenni and I took turns posing with some lovely Amy Butler fabrics in their Amy Butler corner. Don't I look thrilled? That dazed look is from all of the fabric. I think I get a "textile high" when I'm in fabric stores. I get dizzy, disoriented, and when I leave I have an empty wallet and the munchies.I got these lovely fabrics for some bunting I'll be making for my booth. The colors make me think of sorbet or gelato. Yum! (Speaking of which, if you're ever in New Orleans, go eat a Rosewater Sorbetto at La Divina Gelateria for me.) The colors were just too much for me. I'm a color junkie in the worst sort of way. I wanted to strip off my clothes and roll around in all the color! After we left Intown Quilters, Jenni and I went for some Thai food (Chicken Pad Thai is my favorite), and then to the cutest little art gallery in Decatur, Youngblood. We also had cupcakes. It was such a fun day! We both agreed that this should become a regular thing, and I hope it does.
Jenni, I can't wait to see what you make with the fabric!
Today I had the most amazing day with my girlfriend Kitty. I'll be sharing about that tomorrow, so check this spot then!
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