Friday, January 28, 2011

My Custom Dress Form

Formal Introduction of Miss Morgan

Please meet Miss Chesty Morgan, my custom made dress form.  She told me she has been humiliated by my posting of her without a formal introduction.  Furthermore, she told me she was so mortified that I have been posting her pictures in only that 'horrible grey slip'. You will see that I have put her in a black pencil shirt in the hopes of restoring her dignity.  I guess that by now you see that I anthropomorphize many of my objects.  This is a word I learned from the Big Bang Theory - So ha ha contrary to what my high school English teacher said - you can learn from TV and it does has some socially redeeming value.

Several years ago about 10 adventurous ASG members signed up to participate in a 4 day work-shop to make custom dress forms.  One member very graciously volunteered her large three car garage for the event. 

The First day we were wrapped in wet cast baggage material whilst wearing only undies! Yikes. We had to stand for app. 30 minutes until it dried on our body.  I was so lucky that I did not feel claustrophobic, fell down or needed to use the water closet!

Second day, we returned to the garage and put the form together, painted the inside with a substance that enabled the cast to release the foam filling; and filled the cast.

Third day the real work began.  We had to take the cast off the foam filling.  Again, Yikes!  First to see your body in all its glory in foam - not a pretty sight.  After the tedious job of taking the cast off - we had to file the foam with a wood rasp.  Much harder than one would think!  As usual I got in trouble with the Teacher.  As I was admiring my form, I was horrified to see that my little back fat rolls were there for all to enjoy.  I decided right then and there to perform rasp liposuction on myself.  I just filed all those little rolls off.  The Teacher had a conniption!  I told her it was my form and I was the one who would have to look at it for eternity and I did not want to look at those rolls!  She reluctantly let me proceed all the while mumbling under her breath at the vanity of some gals!  This little surgery turned out to be the best thing I did as now my dress form works for me and the others in the workshop said that their form was a bit too big.  The form is rock hard and our bodies are soft (especially mine) and squishy so clothes fit better on a slightly smaller form!

The last day we returned and put on the final touches to include the cover.  We had several neutral colors to choose from, but NO I thought I would be original and use teal.  Not thinking that this would be the canvas of all future garments and not everything goes well with teal!  Oh well, I still love it!



Here she is modeling the partially completed Hot Patterns I started at the retreat



When I brought her home, Dr. P said she looks just like Chesty Morgan!  A little background; for his bachelor party his buddies took him to Nashville to a 'gentleman’s club' and the headliner was Miss Chesty Morgan that professed a 52" bust.  Now you know the origin of her name!
Happy Sewing,
Michele P

4 comments:

  1. Wow, I didnt know that was the history of how chesty got her name. And who doesn't say that you dont learn something new everyday?? ;)

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  2. LOL well she doesn't look teal in the photos. Amazing how you made your dress form!

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  3. what method (book?) did you use to make your form?

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  4. We made them ourselves from a kit and a workshop, the owner of the program conducted the workshop and I am sorry that I cannot remember the name. I will try to remember and post again.

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