One of the ladies in the class had a habit of standing with her hip thrown out a little bit and neither she or the "caster" caught this and her form was not right.

To me her form would be correct if she stood the way she normally does. This is the whole point. You are not supposed to "stand up straight" like grandma's used to say when pinning hems. If your normal stance is with a thrown out hip, than you should stand that way to be wrapped. Otherwise the form will not catch your real posture and then the garments you make from it will not lay right when you are standing your normal way.

I've saved my download and will let you know how it goes. I asked my DH to help me & be serious. I don't know how serious he will be. You know how they are. But it will be fun non the less.

Deborah

Husbands can be good wrappers. After all who knows your body better besides yourself? Having fun with it is great and I encourage it as long as there is a degree of seriousness so you end up with an accurate form. Sometimes it's hard to get a husband to behave enough, but if you can't I would just let it go where it does. You can always get a friend to help you make the form later. I really think creating fun memories is the glue that holds good marriages together.

Today I was checking fit of a jacket with the DTD and noticed that on the double, the jacket cannot be closed, but on me standing normally, it is fine.  When I put hands on my hips, the hem pulls up and the front strains.  So I went downstairs to check out the fit of a couple of made-to-measure blazers I have, and they do the same thing. The blazers definitely have plenty of ease.

It seems like the hands on hips posture somehow changes the torso dimensions, so I am wondering how I can fit anything using this particular form.  Or should I be striving for a fit that is not affected by putting my hands on my hips??

Any ideas or comments you have would be greatly appreciated!

Hummm, I haven't heard from anyone about this before. I do know that as much as the Double reflects the body I have still needed to fit the real person also. I have had various differences with each client. On my own double the bust is a bit different than mine mostly because I have such a small bust that it was hard to get the double to match it. What little is there keeps getting smushed when I use the double. And my bras do fit tighter on the Double than on me, but it hasn't made a big difference in fitting items I've sewn.

Your idea that the muscle structure changes when the hands are on the hips I think has much merit. I can see that the muscle under the bust can flex just enough to through off the form on that area. I'm not sure how to correct for this though other than to be aware of this area and do your best to relax your muscles during wrapping.

For your jacket fitting, I can see that it might not fit correctly because your Double arms were wrapped a little bit farther down the arm than I would wrap them. This may also be contributing to the jacket lacking the width to close for the arms are holding it away some.

In response to the women who wrote that her posture changed when she placed her hands on her hips:

I would suggest wrapping the bust and torso with the wrapee standing normally (hands at sides). The shoulder blades move with the arm, so when you place your hands on your hips, not only the musculature changes, but the shoulder blade position changes as well. Try wrapping the underarm area after wrapping bust and torso, then wrap the arms (this is where you can move your arms out, because you haven't wrapped your shoulder blade area yet), then wrap the shoulder blade area. This should minimize the posture problem.

Also, I was wondering if anyone had used paper tape in the bust area, for stability. I'm going to try it, and I'll let you know if it works.

April

Great suggestion. It may be a bit hard to wrap in the under arm area while her arms are at her sides, but it should be worth the extra effort.

A friend helped me make a dummy, but when she taped my waist, the tape was not tight enough. Consequently it works with loose fitting things, but I can't use it for skirts.

First of all I will tell you that I have a midriff bulge as well as a 'tummy',but I do have a waist indentation. I am not slim and trim like I used to be. Is there any way to remedy this problem without making a whole new dummy ?

This sort of thing happened to me too. My waist turned out to be 3" larger on the dummy. My hips and bust line were close enough, I thought, so I decided to perform some surgery on the waist area. I used an exacto knife to make 4 slits about 6" long intersecting the waist where side seams and center front & back seams would have been if the dummy where a garment. I divided the amount I needed to tighten the waist by the 4 slits and taped around the waist with one strip of tape, carefully closing each slit tighter by that calculated amount. It ended up looking like 4 darts. I used more tape to secure the tops and bottom of the slits until all was covered well.

I remeasured and checked the proportions by looking at the dummy and myself in a mirror. It worked well.

Examine yourself and the dummy carefully in a mirror and determine if your waist measurement is off all around the dummy or if maybe it only bigger in the tummy area. If so you can do my little operation method only in the front. I think that it is more likely that it is a little off all around though.

I just printed out the instructions you sent to me. Thanks!! One question before I start, I have a large bust and gravity has done its work well. Should I be wrapped so that is emphasized? or do I have it wrapped so that it is a smooth convex curve? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Nikki

To answer your question I have to ask you one. Do you wear undergarments that emphasize or that retain your natural shape? How you wrap depends on how you want to look. Someone like me, who is small busted and likes to wear padded bras, should wear one when wrapping so that the garments you make fit the figure you are wearing them over.

Personally I think the smooth convex curve is flattering more than an unnaturally emphasized shape. But it's really up to you. Not having seen your shape it's hard to give an opinion. If you feel you looked better before gravity took it's toll, than by all means find some nice, supportive undergarments and wrap while wearing them. You will get a from of the shape you wrap. Understand that the garments you sew using that form will have to fit that shape, so you will have to wear those special undergarments with the clothing to look right. Am I making sense?

I hope this helps.

I just made a double (with the help of a friend who did the wrapping part) and after finishing it, put some of my shirts and jackets on it to see how they fit. I found that they stretched a bit across the chest, but on checking measurements, the double seems to be fairly accurate. I'm wondering if the arm stubs (about 3-4 inches long) are too long? They stick out a bit from the body (I made sure that I wasn't sticking my arms out during the wrapping), which happened during the stuffing.

I've noticed that professional dress forms stop at the shoulder, and I don't know if a bit of arm stub might be useful (or a hindrance?) in setting sleeves and such things?

My Double does have stubs that are about 10" from the shoulder, but I haven't been sewing many items that have set in sleeves so I haven't come across this problem. You are correct that most manufactured forms don't include the stubs and you certainly do not need them. If they are not an asset, just cut the tape at the shoulder, remove the stubs and add tape to close off the armhole at the shoulder to make it look like a manufactured form.

Before my illness I weighed around 102 to 104 pounds. Since, my illness made me go out of work I have gained the additional pounds with being unable to move around a lot and with the medications I am now taking. I have an illness called Erythromelalgia and being lazy is about the only way to not be in pain. We keep the home around 60 degrees, sometimes 58 degrees and my blood still burns my hands and feet. Cold air or cold water (ice water) is the only way to get relief. The reason I stated the above is I need some information from you. I was intending to make the dress form after I lost some weight. But living such a lazy life style it is hard to loose weight and I am anxious to make it now. If I make the dress form at my current weight and bulges, then loose some weight, can I take it and sort of reform it to (hopefully my lower weight and less bulges) a smaller size, without having to go through the whole process again?

Yes, it can certainly be altered for small amounts of difference. Instructions for this are on page 44. The difference in your weight now and your desired weight is not so much that alteration would be hard. If you were talking 20 pounds and more, I would suggest making a new form.

I am concerned though in your condition and the difficulty it will probably cause when you are being wrapped. It gets very stuffy in that tape and I am concerned it will be way too much for you. It usually takes a good 2 hours or more to do a wrapping. That could be a very difficult time for you to endure. Please don't put yourself in jeopardy. Having this dress form is not worth risking your health over.

Wouldn't it be better to use a body briefer or girdle to get a better shape then a tee shirt that fits loose, or even a shirt that is a size smaller to get a smoother line.

Definitely not. The whole point is to get a "True" representation of the body, not a better shape than what you are. The whole process is designed to capture even your posture, be it good or bad, so that you can then see where your flaws are (And we all have them) so you can better design and sew garments to either camouflage these flaws or showcase your good features.

That said, there is a good reason you may want to do as you suggest - If you are planning on wearing that same body briefer or girdle every time you wear a garment you have made using the Form, than it is a good idea to wear it for the wrapping BUT you also must use the T-shirt because you certainly do not want to cut the briefer when you cut the form off. This is the way most Costumers make their forms if they are using body shaping garment like corsets in their Garment construction.

Your website has been a fabulous tool to help answer all my questions about making a paper tape dress form! I have finally finished mine, but even though I am a small person, my waist measurement came out 3" larger on the form. I saw this exact same problem in your Q & A category but I am not quite sure exactly you mean by making 4 intersecting darts on the form to reduce the excess.
Since the front, back and side seams would be vertical, do you mean the exacto cuts would be horizontal to those imaginary seam lines? And...just by pulling in around the entire form after the cuts are made, is all the excess reduced?
Sorry, but I'm a very visual person and have difficulty trying to interpret written instructions! I knew there had to be some way to remove excess inches and I thought about cutting part of the form away and rebuilding it with additional tape, but I just wasn't sure HOW to do it!
I'd really appreciate your clarification on this process!
Thanks for your time!
Susan

The darts are vertical, like the darts in a dress pattern that shape the waist area.

I've not done the Paper tape method, so I don't know if the way I do things applies to it. I can only comment on doing the form with Duct Tape.