Tutorial: How to customize your dress form - Part one

Today I want to show you a little tutorial on how I fattened up my dress form, since I fattened up myself.
This tutorial will be split up in Bust, Lower Part, Upper Part, roughly.

Changing the size of your dress form to your own measurements isn't that hard actually. First of all you have to take exact measurements and observe your body critically. This means to position yourself in front of a mirror and to determine whether your body has unbalanced proportions or irregularities. 

It is necessary to analyze your body, when you want to have clothes that fit. This has nothing to do with the contemporary "standards" of the fashion industry.  
Therefore - nothing to be too sad about if your eye spots something you don't want to see. :)

To give you a glimpse of where we stand and where we are going, here is a before and after shot of the dress form. It took me about 6 hours if I remember correctly, measuring not included.

This dress form is now two sizes bigger than it was before. 

What you will need:

• Tools like scissors, measuring tape, needles... 
• a voluminous non-woven fabric/wadding like "Vilene". I can't say how much I've used because I didn't check. but I don't think you will need more than 1,5m/1,6yards.
• a shirt you don't want to wear anymore.

Part One: BUST

1. If you have your shirt you probably want to make it smaller to reach a good fit on the dress-form. While making it smaller simply extend your side-seam until you reach your shoulder.
Ignore that bump I made there. Such bumps won't be seen anyway. If your shirt has a thick neckband you can simply cut it off. But try keeping the neckline a little smaller than shown here.

 

2. Roughly sketch a cup-like pattern on the fabric, like you know it from a bikini or bra. The two sides can differ in form, for maybe your breasts do too. 

 

 
3. First pin and check position, then sew with big stitches.

 

 4. Take the wadding and pull it apart to make it more voluminous and fill your cups.

5. Take a square and pin it on your form to define the bust. You can see the edge which is created naturally and will later will be your upper part of the cup.

6.  If there's fabric overlapping the seam-line you're about to create, simply cut it off.

7. Turn the form facing it sideways and draw a curved line from needle to needle.

8. Remember to match the upper and lower parts, otherwise one will be too short!

9. Repeat these steps for the other breast.

10. Sew the two parts together to get a cup, then sew it onto the shirt.

11. Before you fix the cup onto the shirt completely fill it with more wadding. Do it on both sides simultaneously because now is the time to check the measurements! 
The cover will fit tightly on your form and maybe in the end your dress form turns out smaller than your own measurements. 
(If you want to replicate your measurements exactly you should stuff to make it tight. I deliberately left it loose, to make the form a wee bit smaller than my actual size. You're never wrong with that, if it's not more than ~1,5cm)

12. Close it but leave a small gap to be able to adjust the bust size later on. This is important, because maybe you're not happy with the result, when the form is nearly finished, or you want to check the measurements later on.

  

13. Now your boobies may or may not look that monstrous but since the form is not finished, this is only a weird impression. Simply try ignore it, even if it looks ridiculous. ;)

 

14. Now we have to fill the space between the breasts, to get a nice smooth lower bustline. 

 

15. This is what it will look like later on.

Maybe you will notice, that in some pictures the cups aren't stitched onto the shirt yet. That's because I wanted to check the whole look in in pinned position first and stitch it simultaneously afterwards. The process stays the same.

Thanks and see you at part II.