I bought a Lady Valet! I’d always assumed that commercial dress forms would never fit me because of my small bust but I guess the range has gotten better in the past 10 years haha. I got the petite and decided to go for the Lady Valet because it does have a nice wooden base and because it’s natural colour.
When I unboxed it though, I do remember thinking it was pretty perky LOL. And then I put a garment I recently made onto it and yeah…it didn’t look like how it sat on me at all.It was at this point that I realised the difference between small bust and flat chest. I’ve always used this interchangeably since both apply to me 😅
Well, it’s not a big deal right? Other people pad their dress forms to match their waist/hip curves so I can go ahead and pad the bust to make it flatter even if that sounds counter intuitive 🤣 I had just so happened to have finished a cushion project and had Soft and Stable offcuts lying on my sewing floor so picked up a couple strips and layered them like how the Closet Core Shirt-making Course layered all their seams LOL. Then I pinned it to the dress form. I had to get some small head metal pins from my mum’s hoard of random sewing stuff cos mine are all coloured and large enough to easily grip haha.
This was a good start but still not quite right. I made some further adjustments to reduce the dress form bust to account for the padding the Soft and Stable added. And I also decided to make the centre and side measurements uneven to account for the shape of my torso. So even though my bust measurement is 84 I ended up with:
- Front & Back – 89cm
- Sides – 79cm
It’s not perfect, but I don’t think I really can expect it to be and I have no desire to do the duct tape custom form method, ever. I figure since I don’t really do tight fitting clothes, this will probably do the trick for the basic kinda fitting I need to do. It definitely has already come in handy for hems on loose/flowy fabrics. And it is a nice, albeit expensive, mannequin to take photos of my creations on 😝 It brings me joy to look at my creations without also having to look at myself LOL So, definitely worth 🙃
Categories: Sewing
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