I can rarely buy trousers off the peg within my budget that fit me and since I actually took an evening class course on how to construct patterns, I thought it was time that I made my own again. I’m an avid fan of the Great British Sewing Bee, even if I don’t always agree with the judges, and I’m sure that watching the latest series played no small part in my decision to put pattern to fabric once more, that and the fact that if I make my own clothes I have no-one to blame if they don’t fit.
This week my pattern drafting books were brought back into the workroom from the garage where they’ve been for ten years and I began again to construct base paper patterns. In one book I had entered my measurements as they were then, twenty years ago – the last time I actually did any proper dressmaking, and I was slimmer then by almost two sizes. I consoled myself at that point by reminding myself that I am now a mature woman and it’s alright to have a mature figure to match but I don’t much like me this way so the calorie counting starts again Monday.
I knew that making the patterns would not be too big a problem but without a fellow dressmaker to hand, checking the fit of the resultant muslin would be. I had bought what is really a shop display dummy (as opposed to a proper dressmaking form) from a charity shop a decade ago but the size was too small for anything but checking hems or hanging scarves from, until this week when it struck me that I could simply pad it out to my size. In a trawl of local charity shops yesterday, I bought a padded cot bumper and an extra-large simple sleeveless cotton knit dress. The bumper wadding was used to roughly pad the form where necessary and then stitched to the original stretchy cover and the dress was made into a new cover. I think I now have a workable dress form and although it’s not an exact copy of my shape, the essential dimensions match me sufficiently to be of use and the wadding can be removed or, heaven forbid, added to easily. The wadding also makes it a little squidgy in places, just like me.
carvingtimefromlife 