Today, Phyllis and I got together to check the fit on our muslins. Phyllis already showed you an update in her last blog post. I ran up the adjusted muslin today. Phyllis did some tweaking for me on mine, and I tweaked her last muslin as well. Now we’re each ready to start on the final version.
A couple of notes about this body double. There is NO ease. None, nada, zip. We removed every bit of ease so we ended up with a garment that is skin-tight. It’s a rather depressing prospect to see what you look like with no body-skimming/lump-hiding ease built into a garment, but the point is to end up with something that you can use to fit said body-skimming, lump-hiding, ease-filled garments, amiright? So here’s what I ended up with. First up is a 3/4 view. Even after taking some ease from the center front above the bust point, it needed more, so Phyllis pinned that out. You can see that here. We also re-marked the neckline, because it was higher than I wanted. The new neckline goes to the hollow of my throat.
Sigh….
And here is the back view:
Sigh….
Well, there’s a case of reality slapping me upside the head. Two kids, middle age, and one case of breast cancer later, I’m not the hot young thing I still have in my mind’s eye. But I would rather be aware of what I am and how I look so I can find the right silhouettes for me. Yeah, that’s it!
After that, I cut the “real” version from a cotton chambray. Next step is to drape my dress form with its own cover, then pad out between the two versions with fusible fleece. Phyllis and I both were joking that this is a non-trivial project. If you plan to lose (or gain, for that matter) a significant amount of weight, do that before embarking on this effort. And I think you really need a fitting buddy to make this work. Besides, it’s much more fun to have a friend with you who can say, “Oh stop it, you look fine!” when you lament the lumps, bumps and whatevers.
More to come soon. I’ll try to do the dress-form cover this week, but no promises. It’s shaping up to be a cray-cray week.
Happy sewing!
Stop it, you look fine!
Really. You look great in these pics. You probably looked sensational 20 years ago too, but you are “holding up” fantastically.
Can’t wait to hear how padding out the dress form goes.
Holding up? SOB!
No, seriously, thanks!
I like to say, “It sucks growing old, but it sure beats the alternative.”
I say that too! It takes people here in the
UK a beat to figure it out and smile.
This is a wonderful idea, I might have to ge down to doing something like this in the future as I have just inherited my mothers old dress for but doubt I will be able to get it to replicate me properly.
Yeah, I have to admit as much as this project is fun and the result will be totally worth all the work it will a tad sobering to see oneself in 3D. One thing we learned (that Kenneth doesn’t mention) is that it’s useful also to use the arm opening on the body double to really make sure you recreate your ideal armsyce so that sleeves on blouses and tops can be fitted just right. That’s a detail I’m sure we’ll illustrate with photos when these are done.
you look just fine Anne – real good in fact.
ruth
I’m concerned about the dart from the armscye. Be sure to make the grain lines true down the front bodice. Truing that up will change the fit. One more (I know, heart breaking) fitting? Oh I hope I’m wrong!
I’m wondering if that’s really necessary, MB? The grain is already trued up on the muslin to be perpendicular to the floor/parallel to CF. This is supposed to be skin-tight, not hanging at all. And since the goal is to have this be a double of the body, I think (think, not know) that as long as I have that, it should be in pretty good shape. But I’m open to suggestion if I’m off on the wrong track. Thanks!
What? You look fantastic!! There are women half your age who would like to look half as good! I have been trying to convince my husband to wrap me in tape to make a body double as unfortunatley I don’t have a fitting friend. I will definitely include some of the shoulder and arm if possible as this is where I have fitting issues. It’s very interesting to read your progress; thank you for sharing!
I’ve never commented before but I had to on this post. You’re in fantastic shape, not despite of age or history or anything. You look great, full stop!
Hope that doesn’t come across as weird from a total stranger
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Ann…you and Phyllis are going to end up with fabulous forms. Speaking of which, your form is already fabulous IYKWIM.
I can only imagine how painful it would be to make a muslin casing for this purpose. Hello?! just regular muslin test garments torment me.
But my dress form is not a perfect representation of my dimensions and it makes it only nominally useful for draping. So great work here. You will be that much more gorgeous in your finished garments for having gone through this.
Congratulations! It looks great!
After some years of sewing from the patters I was at the end a little fed up with checking the patters on myself. I decided to make a muslin for fitting bodice block, skirt and dress. I finished bodice and skirt block.
To creat bodice I used books by Winifred Aldricht – Metric pattern cutting for women’s waer. It is excellent book with easy to follow instruction.
It is so important to have good basic patterns.
Your muslin looks great! I did a 3 part post called “copy your figure” on making a custom dress form last year: http://www.sewchicpatterns.blogspot.com/2011/09/copy-your-figure-dressform-tutorial.html. It’s a lot of work but well worth the effort. I came by to thank you for an apparent link to my site from gorgeous fabrics. Can you help me find it? :p
The links are here:
http://www.gorgeousfabrics.com/shop/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=sewchic&image.x=0&image.y=0
Lady, you look great!!!
I’m younger, no kids, no breast cancer… and I have put on so much weight (all on my abdomen) from comfort eating too much chocolate. For various reasons. I wouldn’t dare make a body double muslin… and my mirror doesn’t lie.
Again – you look great!
I bought a dress form but I dont have anything to fit pants with and I lost 30 + pounds. I got an idea that I want feed back on. I got out my trusty Reynalds freezer paper, cut enough off for the length of my body, waist to feet. I then started measuring different parts of me, hips, inches from waist to hip, then from there to lower hip, length from waist to ankel, around legs at different parts. Then I measured my body in 1/4, right front, left front, left back and right back. Not an easy task when you are alone doing it. Now, I tried to mark all these measurements on the paper and got a little confussed. I want to make a identical body double because after i make it, I will seam to bottom ankles and top across and then STUFF it until it is a complete body double of me. My problem is getting the right amount of inches in the right place. I have one idea and that is to take a old pattern of pants, mark the measuremnts on that pattern, then cut the muslim the exact size emcept for the seam allowance to sew it. How does that sound? I sure wish I had extention arms and maybe two more arms, it sure would help? Please give me feedback