A couple of events are coming up for which I’ve made costumes. First is a banquet of Regency style food. Last time I went to one of these I didn’t dress in costume, but after a friend assured me that Regency dresses are fairly simple to make and fit I decided to give it a go.

I found a basic pattern over at the Sense and Sensibility Patterns site and got it printed out on A3 paper. The sheets had to be stuck together:

Then the pattern pieces traced in the correct size:

After a bit of research I found that those pale, airy cotton dresses you see in period dramas were more often worn during the day. In the evening more luxurious fabrics were worn. Young, unmarried women wore light colours whereas older, married women could wear darker shades. Velvet was new and fashionable, too. In fact, I found four Regency era paintings via Pinterest of women wearing red velvet gowns, all trimmed with white.

That meant I could make a red dress in a fabric that didn’t need lining. Well, as it turned out it was easier to make the bodice lined because it allowed me to avoid overstitching or handstitching around the neckline and armbands. I found some cotton velvet in a subdued red and used cheap polyprop (65% cotton 35% polyester) as lining.

Back when I used to sew a lot and make my own patterns I always used cheap fabric I found on sale for the test ‘muslin’. This time I decided to try actual muslin for the test bodice. I didn’t like it as much – too flimsy – but it did the job.

After a bit of pattern adjustment and a second test bodice later I was ready to go. I spent a couple of days sewing it up, all the while suffering from camnesia so I don’t have any in-progress shots. I hand sewed the armbands, hem and trim. This is the finished dress wish cashmere shawl and past-the-elbow white gloves:

And a drawstring bag to match:

A few days after making a ‘sock’ for my dress form I made some adjustments. I needed to finish the bottom hem so it wouldn’t come off when removing a garment, fix the collapsing shoulders, and redistribute some of the padding.

The hem was an easy fix – just a tube of the fleece overlocked onto the bottom then a string threaded through to tie it in under the form. The shoulders were a bit trickier. Paul and I searched through Bunnings until I found a solution: electrical cable clips stuck back to back onto a flat piece of plastic then inserted in the arms.

Redistributing the fabric to better match my body shape was a bit more time-consuming. I got Paul to take photos of me and the form from the front and side to I could compare. I was prepared for them to be a bit, er, overly truthful:

They match just fine from the front.

But are very different from the side. For a start, my back is not as flat as the form’s, curving out out at the upper part and in at the lower, and my belly sticks out.

I honestly thought I was standing straight for the pics.

The way the waist of my pants slopes down to the front was a complete surprise. It also explains why low rise pants don’t work for me. They are made to be a high at the back then low at the front to combat the occurrance of plumber’s crack, so my shape would exaggerate this. I’m wearing ordinary old cargo pants that ought to have horizontal waistband.

I had no idea I had such a rounded upper back. It’s not because my arms are out at my sides because the pics Paul took with my arms down are the same.

In my late 20s, when my neck first started playing up, the physio I first consulted said my back looked like it belonged to someone 20 years older. Seeing it in these pics, I recognise my mother’s back. I already knew she was where I got the genes from, as she had similar problems at a similar age, but we are different in so many other ways that this was a revelation.

I’d assumed the shape of the back of my duct tape dress form was due to it sagging. Not all, it turns out. I put it beside the new one to alert me to other possible areas to adjust:

I cut padding from the small of the back and stuck it on the front then I added padding to the upper back. I couldn’t get the latter to match my body without making the under arm measurement too big. The higher bust on the form means the front is a bit larger between the armpits than I am. So long as the measurement is right all around and I never make anything with close-fitting armholes it shouldn’t be too big a deal. I hope.

The finished form is much closer to my shape now, though the sock smooths everything out and skims over the waist a bit now. I didn’t bother shaping the underside of my belly since it’s never going to a suitable form to make pants on and skirts and dresses would fall from the widest point anyway.

The final test will be to try using it to drape or alter something on. Since I’ve recently become addicted to The Great British Sewing Bee I suspect it won’t be long before I do.

Most of the tutorials for padding a dress form that I found advocate using non-stretch fabric and a paper pattern for the purpose, adjusted to fit your body, that you stuff with filling then spray with water to get it to shrink a bit. Since that’s the sort of fiddly nightmare I bought a dress form to avoid, I’m going to try something else.

In one of the tutorials for the above method the stuffing was done by applying layers of thin batting until the form matches your shape. I figured if did this first I could put a ‘sock’ of stretch fabric on top, pinched in at the sides until it fits snugly.

I started by measuring myself all over again. It was rather dismaying to find I’d put on a bit of weight since I bought the form. I also hadn’t got the body length quite right. I had to crank it out to the maximum – double what you saw in the previous photo.

The trouble with adjustable dress forms is the more you expand them the more gaps there are that you can’t pin to. And they feel a lot less stable. The trouble with most brands is that the next size up starts at 16, so I had to buy the smaller and crank it way open. To combat these problems I decided it would be better to set the form a little smaller than me and pad out more, to counteract this.

So I started applying layers of batting. I traced the cup of an old bra first then cut smaller and smaller pieces to get a smooth shape. I filled in the waist and padded out the hips, then sewed it all together so it wouldn’t fall off in the next stage:

I put the bra on again and decided to leave it there so it would hold the bust padding in place and indicate where bra straps are likely to be. (As you can see, the bust needed a lot more padding. I’d read an 8 on my sheet of measurements as a 3.)

Which was to baste some fleece into a tube and carefully slip it over the form. I then pinched, pinned and basted it together at the sides and up over the shoulders to the neck:

On it went again for some tweaking. Measurements were checked yet again. Once I was sure it was fitting well I overlocked the seams. Here it the sock back on the form:

And with lines:

I was pretty happy with the result. There are a few tweaks I want to make, though. I need to work out how to fix the bottom of the sock in place. I also want to do a silhouette test – take a photo of the form and me next to each other, from the side and front, to see if the padding is in the right place. While the form is the same measurement as me, I suspect there’s padding in the the small of the back that ought to be at the belly.

And the front and back pieces of the form appear to be overlapping at the shoulders, pulled in by the sock. I need to find a way to stop that happening or all my garments will be small at the shoulder and around the armholes.

The time has come to retire my old duct tape* dress form. Why? Well, here’s a pic when she was new and one as she is now:

And a view of the base:

She spent a lot of time in my workroom during baking hot summer days and, really, anyone would sag in those conditions. I could re-stuff her and add some internal supports, but in the last few years my shape has changed, too. Particularly in the frontal region.

Making and using her has been really worthwhile. It’s shown me that I enjoy sewing better when working on a dress form. I enjoy pinching and pinning and getting an immediate idea of what the effect will be. It’s particularly useful when refashioning. I like designing a lot more than the actual sewing, but I don’t mind the sewing so much when I actually get a piece of clothing out of it that fits and looks good. Using a form means that happen more often than it used to.

So I decided it was worth spending some money and getting a ‘proper’ dress form. After some hunting around the internet for dress form reviews and recommendation, and some ringing around to see which shops stocked which forms, I settled on a Semco, which I bought at Spotlight:

This was the only model I found, on the internet or in shops, with a body length adjustment and at a reasonable price. Since I am long in the body I knew I’d need that feature. How long? One to two finger widths:

The next step is to make the form match my proportions. That means padding and a cover, because these sorts of forms are a very standard shape. (Pity they don’t have a bust line lowering adjustment, for us over-40s women.)

What will happen to the duct tape form? I’m tempted to keep her to display things on, but she’s a bit of an ugly duckling and I don’t have room for two forms. It might also help to cut her in half and use her as a kind of temporary mould to get the new form closer to my real shape.

-

*Did you know that ‘duck’ tape was in use long before ‘duct’ tape? I assumed ‘duck’ came about because of people miss-hearing ‘duct’. Turns out the tape was originally strips of duck cloth. Later it was used to seal ducts. To confuse things, the company who made duct tape called it ‘Duck Tape’, with a little duck character on the label.