Duct Tape Dressform Blues

Over the weekend, a friend threw a duct tape dressform making party. If you haven't heard of the duct tape dress form, it's a really cool and cheap alternative to buying one of those more expensive adjustable dress forms. You put on an old shirt, have a friend wrap you up in duct tape, cut the tape/shirt off, seal it up, stuff it with fluff, and voila! An easy double of you.

But it isn't pretty.

It sounded like a fabulous idea. My friend bought all the duct tape and fiber fill in bulk so we could save money and a good time was had by all during the event. About twelve of us participated, we took turns wrapping each other and in the middle, we took a nice tea and cookies break.

But when I got home, I took out my measuring tape and measured my new "me". And it was off. Horribly, horribly off. In some places it was more than 5" too large. I was aghast, but I figured I could still salvage it. I took off the bottom, pulled out all the stuffing, and stored it in two garbage bags for safe keeping until later.

I recut the seam in the back, and cut two princess seams up the front so I could take it in as best I could. After about two hours of cutting, taping, measuring, retaping, measuring, and retaping again, I finally got the form to roughly where it should have been in the first place. Then I ran out of duct tape before I could finish it up.

I went out to get some more, but they only had a black kind that was more expensive. I bought it anyway, but I was feel pretty frustrated by the project so I decided to call it a day and do other things. I woke up this morning, however, to discover that all the seams I painstakingly cut, measured, nipped and tucked had all busted open in the night. I didn't have enough tape to reinforce them completely, so they all popped in the night.

So, I had to tape everything back together again (that's the black tape you see in the image). But somehow, it didn't fit back together the same way. The underbust is too big (I couldn't fit the bra I'm wearing right now on it and I could before) and there's a weird thing going on in the space between my breasts and the neck. It's sort of popping out in a strange way. I remain confident that my actual chest/neck area doesn't do that, but I don't know what to do about it.

I'm strongly considering taking all the fluff out of it again and ditching this entire one and starting over. But that would be a lot of time and a lot of tape, with no guarantee that it'll come out better the second time. For now, I'm too frustrated to even look at it so I'm just going to let it sit for a few days while I figure out what I want to do next.

Mending An Old Bra

I'm going to get a little personal with you and talk about my bra troubles. I have a few every-day bras and they no longer fit. As you wear a bra, the band stretches out a bit as the elasticity breaks down. That combined with the fact that I've lost 20lbs recently means I have some really ill-fitting bras on my hands.

They don't look quite as nice as they did when I bought them three (yes, three) years ago, but they still get the job done. I am on the bustier side, so I need quality bras. Despite the fact that I like to think of myself as a thrifty nickle, I buy mine from Victoria's Secret. They make some very excellent and well constructed bras and they last. In fact, there's nothing wrong with the ones I have other than the fit

I have absolutely no desire to throw out perfectly good but too-big bras and shell out $60 or more on a couple new ones. So, instead, I devised a plan to make the old bras fit again. Queue the seam ripper.

The first step is determining where you bra doesn't fit anymore. For me, it was riding up in the back, which is a sign that the band size is too large. If you've recently lost some weight like me, this is likely your problem. For other issues, check out this excellent bra trouble-shooting resource. As the page suggests, you should clasp the bra tighter but even with my bra clipped at its tightest, it's still too big. The not-so-secret solution I decided on was to make the band a little smaller.

Grab your bra, and look at the closure. Most likely, it uses a hook and eye closure, like this:

It's much easier to remove the eye tape section, so take your seam ripper and carefully undo the stitching that holds it in place. You may have to rip some stitches across the top and bottom, as well.

Wedding Dress Blues

As I mentioned before, Hubby-to-be and I are tying the knot in just about a month. The big day is November 5th. So, not surprisingly, I have a thousand things to do. This week, one of those things was trying on my dress again. I wanted to make sure it still fit right, that it looked right, all that.

It has a corset-style back, and since Hubby-to-be isn't allowed to see it, I had to get creative to try it on while I was home alone. I laced the back up, tied a loose knot, slid it over my head, and then tightened the lacing up while it was one. It worked pretty well.

I thought the skirt looked kind of weird at the hips, like puffed out. But the train was spread out, so I took it off to bustle it up and see how the hips looked then. Then I discovered something surprising.

There. is. no. bustle.

But... but... the woman in the dress boutique bustled the sample dress for me in the shop. I saw it, and it was gorgeous. I did some looking into it on the internet, and it turns out I had to actually order the bustle on the dress, it's an upcharge. Uh, what? It has a 5 foot long train! I bought a dress from a respectable designer and the bustle doesn't come included with the dress?

After a little initial panicking, I realized I could just put in a French bustle without too much trouble. After a lot of pinning, trying on and taking off I finally got a two point bustle in place, and it looks really close to the one I saw on the sample dress. Best part, I can actually dance during the reception now! Woohoo!

Crisis averted, I now only have 999 things left to do.