Homemade Dress Form!
Making costumes for yourself by yourself can be a little tricky. I have memories of sewing a costume, trying it on, taking it off, sewing some more, and all the while dodging pins and half the time having to sew in my corset! Not very fun, but at least I had great posture! haha! However, considering the Regency corset only laces in the back and does not open in the front like my Civil War corset, I would be forced to sew my dress bodices in my corset without the luxury of unhooking it for a breather. Not good!
So, I have been doing research and looking around at various dress forms and man are they expensive! Even on sale at $99, it's a boatload of money for, what a lot of reviews feel are, expensive pieces of plastic junk. I was starting to get discouraged until I stumbled upon the most wonderful thing. I was more than thrilled to find a very nice tutorial for...
...making your own dress form from paper tape!!!
So cheap! So easy! So awesome!!!
Here is the tutorial. I can't wait to try out my own! I was worried about the bust though. I'd be using this for making historical costumes that require a corset as a foundation. She suggests wearing your regular bra, but I'm going to wear a sports bra, because that would be closer to the actual squishing my chest will undergo with the corset, and the dress form is not squishable like I am. I thought about wearing the corset to make the dress form, but I wouldn't be able to switch between Victorian and Regency that way. So, I think I'll stick to the sports bra idea.