Uniquely You Dress Form: unpacking, steps 1 and 2

I bought a dress form!

It’s a Uniquely You dress form. It comes with a “foam lady” inside and a cover. You tailor the cover to fit you, and then zip it over the foam, which fills the cover to be just your size. I did a lot of research on dress forms and I thought it was so super cool when I saw it. It is the only dress form I found that you can really customize.

*Update 2/20/14* I ordered a size small dress form and a size 4 cover.

I watched this video on youtube, by Shona of Shona Stitches, which chronicles her experience tailoring the cover to fit her. She is so cute. What is it about redheaded bloggers that make them so photogenic?

So here is me unpacking the box:

Look at those funny torpedo boobs!

And these are the instructions:

I FREAKED out when I first tried on the cover, because no way Jose was it going to zip over my round behind. But then I took it off and looked at the inside. Duh, Claire. There is a lot of extra fabric on the inside of the cover that can be let out to make it bigger.

inside of cover- huge seam allowances

So then I read through the instructions. Step 1 basically has you rip open the sides and fit the shoulders. I ripped the shoulder seam about an inch and a half from the neck on each side, and then pinned and re-sewed it. You can see the original seam line in the picture below. I only had to move the seam over about 1 cm, but it made a huge difference in the fit.

Both shoulders pinned:

Right shoulder sewn:

Left shoulder sewn:

Step 2 has you mark your natural waist (the smallest part of your torso), and then make a vertical dart 6 inches in length. I needed an extra hand to mark my waist, because every time I lifted my arms to make the mark, the cover rose up with my shoulders, and the mark on the waist was off.

So then I transferred the mark to the middle of the panel:

I measured from the side seam line (where I ripped it apart) to the other edge of the front side panel (where it is still sewn together). At the intersection halfway between those and at my natural waist (does that make sense?) was where I put the middle of the dart.

Making the dart:

I folded the fabric vertically, right sides together, and pinned it so it wouldn’t move. Then I drew where I was going to sew the dart.

To clarify what I did, the instructions say, “Make a vertical dart in each of the marked panels. To make the darts, fold the material lengthwise through the center of the side front and side back panels. Starting at nothing at the upper pin [3″ from the waistline], deepen dart to 1/4″ at the waist and end at nothing 3″ below the waist (lower pin).”

Here is the cover pre/post dart making. I made darts in all four side panels (left and right front and back), but this picture just shows the dart in the left side.

Phew. And I think those were the shortest steps of the whole fitting process… should be an adventure getting to the finish line! Follow along as I continue working on my Uniquely You dress form.

*Update 4/13/2014*
Here is a blog button to add to your blog if you are also working on your dress form and want to share!

Copy and paste this code into a widget (for WordPress) or gadge (for Blogger) on your side bar.

<img class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-1887″ src=”https://hoopesparkstudios.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/uniquely-you-button.jpg” alt=”uniquely you button” width=”215″ height=”216″ />

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