My crazy DIY dress project!

 

It's done! It all started with a pile of conference T-shirts, plus a couple of others.  Each year, I get a voucher at my annual conference to spend at the 'conference store'.  The voucher is a perk of teaching workshops at the conference, and I use them to pick up a conference T-shirt.  But here's the problem.  I don't EVER wear these T-shirts.  They don't fit well.  My hips are too large for a small, but a medium is huge on my shoulders.  And I despise the necklines.  So I cut out the necks and made them into scoop or V-neck shirts figuring I'd wear the ill-fitting shirts to the gym or tromping in the woods.  But  I discovered that, even though they looked a little better without the hideous necks, the cheap T-shirt fabric is hot and scratchy, definitely not gym-wear.  So they sat in a drawer, until I decided to do something with them.

After much deliberation and experimentation,  I made this dress/tunic, using quotes I found on the shirts.  I hope that Cassie Stevens is proud of me for this sewing project! 

 This piece on the back is from a T-shirt that I got, I swear, probably 20 years ago, when I renewed a subscription to School Arts magazine.  It was softer than the conference shirts, and I wore it until it was getting yellowed and threadbare.  This was a good way to rescue it.  Here's a close up of "How to be an Art Teacher".

 Got Art?, anyone?

 My sleeves!

 For the first time, I was actually able to use my duct tape dressmaker's dummy, Violetta, to help fit the garment, and it worked like a charm.  I was able to narrow the shoulders and shorten the torso, while getting the loose-fitting shape that I wanted in the body.  In case you don't remember, here's Violetta:

My original plan was to cut the shirts in to rectangles and piece them together like a puzzle, but that just wasn't a workable idea.  Instead, I selected a comfy very deep violet knit fabric, and cut out the various parts of the tunic.  Then, I used WonderUnder to adhere the random odd shaped quotes onto the dress pieces, and I zigzagged around them to give them a more finished look.  Once that was done, I was able to sew together the whole shebang!

On the front of my tunic:

 A close-up of the front:

 Look carefully on the table next to me, in front of the clock.  If you really  LOOK, you will see a little stuffed Adirondack black bear.  His name is Nelson (he was named after Nelson Mandela), and he has traveled to South Africa and back to live in my home.  You can read the story of how he came to live in my house, and the saga of his travels in this post I wrote in March 2011!

Meet Violetta, my new twin

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you probably know I'm a Project Runway fan.  And you probably also know that I sew.  While I have sewn all sorts of things, my favorite (and most frequent) sewing projects are clothes.  But when I sew a clothing item, I'm forever having to get undressed, try the item on for fit, get dressed, repeat.  It's time consuming and a pain in the neck, and I'm not particularly patient.  I currently  have a sewing project in the beginning stages that I am struggling to figure out because I am not working with a pattern, and just can't figure out how to fit it to my body.

Violetta, dressed in pearls

So, after watching Project Runway last week, I decided that I needed a dressmaker's dummy.  I went online and started shopping and immediately recognized a bigt problem: my size.  I discovered that I could find adjustable-size mannequins in small, medium, large, extra-large, and petite.  As I am under 5' tall, with a short torso and short legs, I consider myself petite.  But, there were no options for sizing in petite dummies; they were just 'petite', and their adjustable measurements were decidedly small.  Mine are not.  So my choice was: get a petite dummy that did not expand to my dimensions, or get a medium dummy whose torso would not be short like mine.  Neither choice was acceptable, since clothing I built on them would not fit me accurately.  Darn.

That's when I started discovering all the online tutorials for Duct Tape dressmaker's mannequins!!  Eureka!!   I enlisted my husband (I'm doing a sewing project for him, making seat covers for his vintage car, so I figured he owed me a couple of hours of time) and I went to the store for supplies.  I reviewed dozens of tutorials, and explained to hubby what he was about to do.  And being a man, he listened to... some of it.  And of course, he was sure he had a better way.  We took lots of process photos but they all kept inserting sideways, so I'll only share those that are aiming the right way.

Right here, I'd better say, this is NOT a tutorial.  As a matter of fact, I don't even recommend you try to follow the tutorials you might find.  Because, you see, they might indicate that it is EASY to build a duct tape mannequin, and I'm here to tell you, they are LYING.  It is a serious challenge and you might not be too thrilled with the results.

Instructions say to start with a tight firm wrap around the waist (over a slim fit garment; I was wearing a thin knit), which my husband did, but then he began to deviate from my direction.  As a result, it was not as snug as it should be, as you  can see below.

 

 And honestly, while I greatly appreciate my husband's willingness to do this silly project with me, and while he was a great sport about it, I'd strongly recommend, if you do try to make a duct tape dummy, to enlist another female to do the taping rather than your spouse.  My husband just didn't understand the bra shape construction, and was more concerned about getting the tape smooth, so, well, let's just say my dummy's boobage is not exactly shaped properly.  (Lift and separate, please, honey?)

 Anyhow, here I am, all taped up with a layer of silver Duck tape.  The red collar was cut off of an old turtleneck to protect my neck from the tape.  By they way, if you have long hair and a low hairline like mine, think about how to keep it out of the tape.  I had mine tied up, but I wish I had put on a shower cap or had it tucked in to a hat.  My husband repeatedly caught my hair in the tape, and then pulled it off, breaking much of  the hair at my hairline on the back of my neck.  It was painful, and now I have a bunch of hair in the back that won't stay in my pony tail. 

 Isis was very curious abou the crazy ongoings in our living room.  

 I had some red tape that we were using to mark the center and the shoulders.  If it looks off-center to you, you'd be correct.  I have some spine curvature, which results in me having a slightly crooked body - one hip and shoulder a little highter than the other, and a sloped back. 

 In the photo below you can see that my left shoulder is lower than the right .

 When it was all done, my husband cut it up through the back so I could remove it.  It came off very easily.  You can see that he didn't exactly complete the arms.  By that point, he had had enough of my trying to tell him what do do, I think!

Then, the next job was to tape it back together.  This might have been the most challenging part of the whole project, but not one of the tutorials mentioned that!  At that point, I sat the dummy in a chair and found something else to do.  I was tired of Duck tape.

 But it started to get squished in the rocking chair, so I inserted a hanger inside the shoulders and hung it from a light fixture until I'd have time to finish it.  My bum looks a little squished, no?

My husband, wonderful man that he is (no kidding) cut a 2x2 piece of wood that I had bought, and build a support for the body that you will see in the photos below.  I cut cardboard for the ends of the arms and neck, inserted them and sealed them with Duck tape.  I also cut a piece for inside the waist, and for the bottom of the body. 

The tutorials mostly said to stuff the dummy with pillow stuffing (though a few used wads of newspaper and a couple actually used spray foam).  I bought a big 10 pound box so that I could stuff it tightly.  Big mistake.  Stuffing it tightly makes it stretch, and stretching in places caused wrinkling in others.  It was bad.  I know I'm not skinny, but it started to bulge uncomfortably.  In the end, I took most of the stuffing out, leaving in the barest minimum to hold the shape.  And honestly, I think it turned out somewhat OK, though not quite what I anticipated.  I'd still like a real dressmaker's mannequin, if I can ever find one that  has my proportions.  Anyhow, Violetta (my mannequin) now is in my art studio room, where I also sew, and she has been trying on some of  my clothes, such as this former sewing project:

She's been trying on scarves, jewelry, and sweaters, and seems to fit in my clothes fairly well, all things considered.

Sideways, I know, but here I am with my new twin!