Thursday, October 27, 2011

Meet Cecily!

My husband promised me that once we moved to LA, I could get a dress form. Not before, because he didn't want to deal with moving it. Well, two months after moving, with the help of Craigslist, I finally have one! It was tricky to find one that was pinnable, more or less my size, and not $300. Much as I would love one of those professional forms that are always being sold by former FIDM students, we just don't have the budget for it. So when I found this form that was almost exactly my measurements, I knew I had to snatch it up.

It seems that the norm is for sewists to name their forms, so meet Cecily! I've always loved the name since first hearing it in The Importance of Being Earnest, but since it means "blind" I would never saddle a child with that name. However, blind is definitely a fitting name for a headless piece of foam. Which is what she is.
Disturbingly puke-colored foam, too.

When I got home, I immediately stripped Cecily of her meager clothing and washed it (by hand, in cold water, getting scratched by the metal zipper). There are still some questionable stains (actually, probably just from the foam adhesive) on her side, but it's good enough. The cover was definitely altered from the factory size by whoever owned Cecily previously, leaving her bust area a little lumpy. Still, I'm glad that I don't have to alter a cover.

I tried on a couple of my more form-fitting dresses on Cecily to see how she held up. First up: a sheath dress. It looks fine at first glance, but then I discovered some weird gaping at the underarm.

Not bad!

Oh wait.

I also tried my bustier-esque dress on her, but that fit perfectly with no gaps. Hmm. Well, I guess I'll just have to watch out for that when making dresses on her. Just goes to show that a form is no substitute for actually trying things on a real body?
Perfect.


I can't wait to try her out with my next dress (I've already used her for a tissue fitting, and let me say that it is extremely useful to have a pinnable body double), but before that, I have a bunch of pants to hem.

3 comments:

  1. Oh, she's lovely! Is that one of the forms where you stitch the covering so it fits you perfectly, then just squish the foam into it? Anyway, she looks darling. I go back and forth on a form---it would be handy for so many things, but I wouldn't want one that doesn't have my "custom shape" (short waist and swayback :P)

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  2. @Tanit-Isis Yes, this is like the Uniquely You dress forms, although I don't think it is actually that brand. The seller said it was from the 70s, and it's missing the torpedo bust that Uniquely You forms are supposed to have. I was lucky that the cover was already my measurements, but I imagine that a short waist would be difficult to reproduce in a dress form! I really wanted the squishable form because I hope to make my own corset one day, and supposedly this is the best kind for that.

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  3. Oh, yay! This is better than the duct tape dummy idea. :D

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