I meant to come up with a favorite tip for each year, but I couldn’t think of one last January. This year, however, I came up with a really good tip. In fact, this may be the best sewing tip ever. And it’s so simple it’s mind blowing.

Here it is:

Pin diagonally. Not perpendicular to the seam. Not parallel to the seam. Diagonally.

Apparently, there is some great debate about whether pinning perpendicular or parallel to the seam is better. I’ve always been a perpendicular pinner, because that’s what my mother did. I never even thought about it. Then I watched Kenneth King’s Craftsy (now Bluprint) classes, where he advocates pinning parallel to the seam, so I decided I’d do a test to see which I liked better.

I’ve always pinned parallel to my seams when matching dart legs, but I hadn’t tried it on a whole seam. After trying pinning parallel along the seam a couple of times, I decided it was not for me. Yes, pinning this way keeps your fabric edges aligned better, but it’s harder to match seams or stripes, it’s harder to remove the pins, you can’t sew as close to the pins, and worst of all, I stabbed myself with pins every time I tried it.

Then one day, I think when I was pinning down a bias binding, which is kind of bulky, I had a pinning epiphany. When you pin at a 45 degree angle to the seam, you get the benefits of both parallel and perpendicular pinning, without the drawbacks of either, plus a couple of additional benefits.

Here are the benefits of pinning diagonally:

• The pins slide in more easily.
• The fabric is distorted less.
• It’s easier to pin through bulky areas.
• You can sew close to the pins before removing them.
• The pins are easy to remove.
• The fabric can’t shift either side to side or along the seam.
• You can easily match stripes or seam lines.

Here’s how I match a seam or stripe.

First, measure in the width of your seam allowance and stick a pin vertically through both layers of fabric, matching the seam or stripe right on the stitching line.

Now put a diagonal pin right on either side of the vertical pin, making sure the first vertical pin stays straight.

After those pins are in, remove the vertical pin and put it in diagonally right over the match point. Finish pinning your seam.

When you sew the seam, sew right up to the pins near the match point before removing them.

Every time I do this I’m amazed at how well my seams match. I always had problems matching seams before I tried it this way.

While I’m on the subject of pins, I thought I’d share my recently discovered favorite pins with you. I’d been sewing with the same old pins for over twenty years, and then when I kept trying to replace them, I ended up with a whole drawer full of dull pins. I am so frustrated with the poor quality of nearly everything these days.

Links in this post identified by an asterisk (*) are affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I will earn a commission (at no additional cost to you). UK* and CA* are links to the UK and Canada Amazon sites.

Finally I bought Clover Marbled Glass Head Pins* (UK*, CA*). These are absolutely perfect for garment sewing. They are 36 mm long, 0.5 mm in diameter, sharp, and you can iron over the glass heads without melting them. They slip right into fabric, but aren’t so thin that I’m constantly bending them. [Edit: After using these pins for a while, I realized that these pins, while sharper than most pins, are not quite as sharp as the Patchwork Pins. This means they won’t slide into tightly woven fabric as easily, but they won’t slide into your fingers as easily, either!]

They are however, a little pricey, and you only get twenty pins in a package, which I found wasn’t enough. I liked them so much I hated having to use my old pins when I ran out of the new Clover pins.

I almost bought a second package of them, but then I realized that Clover Patchwork Pins* (UK*, CA*) are the same diameter and length and also have glass heads, so I bought a package of those instead. The Patchwork Pins come in a package of 100 instead of 20. Don’t be put off by the word “patchwork” — they are perfect for garment sewing, too. The only difference I could see between these and the marbled pins was the color of the pin heads. So unless you really want pretty marbled pin heads, just get the Patchwork Pins or Clover Silk Pins* (UK*, CA*) which are also the same length and diameter.

After checking the thickness of all of the pins that I have and testing how easily they slide into fabric, I decided that 0.5 mm pins are the thickest I ever want to use for garment sewing. For thick fabric that would bend the pins, I switch to using Wonder Clips* (UK*, CA*).

For thin fabric, I use Dritz Ultra Fine Glass Head Pins* (UK*, CA*), which of all of the Dritz pins I’ve tried are the only decent ones. These pins are 0.4 mm thick and very sharp. They bend easily, so I only use them when I really need thin pins. Clover also makes 0.4 mm pins, if you’d like to stick with the Clover brand:  Clover Patchwork Pins-Fine* (UK*, CA*) (don’t confuse these with Clover “Quilting Pins” which are longer and thicker).

Pinning diagonally is so simple and effective, I’m wondering why everyone doesn’t pin this way. Have you tried it?

* Links in this post identified by an asterisk (*) are affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I will earn a commission (at no additional cost to you).

This year I resolved to get my sewjo back. I was frustrated that my “to sew” list just kept getting longer and longer. Also, I really needed some new clothes, but now that I know how good custom made clothing feels, I can’t bring myself to buy ready-to-wear clothes. But I was stuck and couldn’t seem to start a sewing project.

Heather Lou, the designer behind Closet Case Patterns, was on Episode 23 of the Love to Sew Podcast last January. Her advice for procrastinators really resonated with me. “Just do the damn thing. Stop thinking about it. Stop making endless lists. Just do it.”

I really need a personal cheerleader telling me that all the time. I tend to think something to death because I’m so afraid of something going wrong, or I’m just not sure of how to get started, or I want it to be perfect. Also, I have way too much sewing stuff in too small of a space. I have things arranged as best as I can on rolling carts and things, but there’s still the mental hurdle of having to move things around before I can get started.

Since I don’t have a personal cheerleader, I thought maybe I could print out a note reminding me not to procrastinate and hang it on the wall. I know from experience, though, that I’ll stop noticing a sign on the wall after a couple of days.

I thought maybe if I spent several hours sewing myself a note instead, I might pay a little more attention to it. So I made this wall hanging, which I put on the wall just above my computer screen:

Did it work? Well, I still ignore this sign sometimes, but when I do really look at it, I have positive feelings about sewing. It is definitely more motivating than words on a piece of paper would have been. I think a paper sign would make me feel guilty for not doing something, while the sewn sign makes me happy because—hey, I sewed that, and look at those nice satin stitches on the applique!

I’ve sewn quite a few things this year. The funny thing is, I just haven’t felt like blogging about most of them. I guess I feel I should have pretty pictures of them. But, you know what, taking pictures sucks. I don’t have good lighting or much room indoors, and taking everything outside is a huge hassle. Then there’s trying to get good pictures when I am a total dunce at posing. But this is my blog, and I can do whatever I want, so you get whatever pictures I feel like taking, even if they are just on my dress form or in bad lighting.

I’m writing this blog post mostly for myself anyway, to remind me, that yes, I’ve sewn quite a few things this year. When I don’t blog about them, I tend to forget how many things I really have sewn.

After I took care of the two main things that had me stuck—I needed to make bras that fit me before I started fitting new clothes, and I really wanted a new custom dress form—I started sewing a lot more. That dress form has been absolutely amazing, by the way. I can’t believe how much faster and easier fitting is now. I wish I could come over to your house and help you make your own dress form, but I can’t, so that’s why I wrote the tutorial on how to make your own dress form. Actually, I think writing that tutorial is what got me burned out on blogging for a while—it was a lot of work.

These are the garments I’ve sewn this year but haven’t mentioned on my blog. They are all made from fabric from my stash purchased in 2017 or earlier. I spent too much on a set of thread and some vintage sewing machines this year, so I’m not buying fabric for the rest of the year. I’m making room in my stash, though, so next year I’ll have room for new fabric!

Here’s an Itch to Stitch Davina Dress. I made this with a heavyweight cotton/spandex double knit fabric that I had previously cut down the middle lengthwise to make it into a baby carrying wrap. My babies are now almost teenagers, so I converted the wrap into a dress. The fabric was narrow, so I had to do some creative piecing, but I made it work. I had some issues with the neckline gaping, so I sewed some clear elastic into the seam, and now it ripples. I need to remember to alter the neckline and do an FBA if I make this dress again. I do wear the dress, though. In fact, I’m wearing it right now.

Here is an SBCC Tonic Tee. I made some fit alterations, so this version fits a little better than the last one I made, although I may have overdone the flat upper back alteration just a tad—the shoulder seams are a little too far back now. But it’s a knit, so it all works.

Another Tonic Tee in mint green.

An Itch to Stitch Lago Tank. This was the first one I made, so I consider it a wearable muslin. I should probably get rid of it, because it’s polyester, and I hate wearing polyester.

Another Lago Tank made from cotton baby rib knit. This one has a very loose fit, because there is no spandex in the fabric. I don’t really care for the cut of this tank, because it shows my bra straps in the back, but it’s a good place to start from if I want to customize the pattern. I’ll wear this tank in the winter as an extra layer for warmth.

Here’s my first Helen’s Closet York Pinafore. The fabric I used was a remnant of cotton twill. I made the bias facings extra narrow, hand basted them in place, and sewed them down from the right side with jeans topstitching thread. I did an FBA and shortened the pattern in the upper chest area so the neckline and the opening on the side aren’t down so low. I also made some fit changes to the back shoulder and made a full bum adjustment. The pattern alterations were so easy with my dress form! It is such a simple pattern that I just pinned the printer paper pattern onto my dress form and adjusted it. Kind of like tissue fitting, but I didn’t even bother tracing the pattern onto tissue paper.

Here’s my second, longer version of the York. I made this in linen. I drafted narrow exposed facings for this one instead of using bias tape. The facing fabric is floral linen left over from making my Bootstrap Fashion dress form.

I had some lavender linen left over, so I made another modified Scout Tee with it.

Helen released a cross-back apron expansion pack for the York Pinafore. I thought that was a fabulous idea, but I had made so many fit changes to the pinafore already that I thought it would be easier just to figure out this pattern hack on my own (plus I spent too much money on sewing stuff already this year, so I’m on a fabric and pattern buying break). I put my first York pinafore onto my dress form and pinned ribbon onto the back to figure out the apron back lines, then traced them onto tissue paper.

I managed to squeeze this apron out of just under a yard of cotton canvas I had in my stash. I had to cut the back pieces slightly off grain, but it looks fine.

The apron is ever so much more comfortable than ones with a tie around the back of my neck. And it fits! The one-size-fits-all store bought aprons I have are much too large for me.

I made a second, reversible York cross-back apron. I thought it would be easier to sew than sewing on over five yards of bias facing, but it really wasn’t, and the edges aren’t as stable. If I make another one of these aprons, I’ll stick to finishing the edges with bias tape.

Is it a floral kind of day?

Or am I in the mood for food and farm animals?

Here is a loose fitting tee I made. My husband got a free T-shirt that ended up being a women’s large, not men’s, so he gave it to me. It is absolutely the perfect size for me, and I realized that my other ready-to-wear tees are all either too big or too small. So I traced off a pattern from the shirt, compared it to my fitting shell, and came up with a method for drafting the perfect loose fitting tee based off of a woven sloper. Once I’ve perfected the method a bit and tried it on other people I’ll share it. This tee is almost perfect. I need to raise the shoulder points just a bit on the next version.

I don’t tend to think of loose fitting T-shirts as needing much fitting, but they really are more comfortable when they fit correctly!

I sewed three more bras using the same self-drafted pattern as last time I made bras. The yellow and white checked fabric is Kaufman Carolina Gingham, which seems like an unlikely choice for bra fabric, but I really like it. It doesn’t stretch out too much over the course of the day, yet it has a good amount of give on the bias. I didn’t have yellow ribbon, so I made the bow out of a narrow tube of bias cut fabric.

I pulled out all of the scraps of knit fabric I had in my stash and sewed a drawer full of underwear. I only own two pairs of ready-to-wear underwear now. The pattern is one I made myself. Originally I traced off patterns from three different pairs of ready-to-wear underwear and combined them. Then I just kept tweaking the pattern. By the last pair I had the fit perfect.

Here are a couple of blurry mirror shots of my Avery Leggings. These are really just a wearable muslin. I actually made the lower rise, cropped version, but I’m so short they nearly come up to my natural waist, and go down to my ankles. I added length to the back waist for a full bum adjustment, but next time I’ll add just a little to the width, too.

The pattern calls for 1/2″ elastic at the waist. I’m sensitive to pressure, so I used some 3/4″ elastic instead. You have to use elastic with gentle stretch, or the elastic will be longer than the fabric and it won’t sew together right. Even with the gentle stretch 3/4″ elastic, the waistband still cuts into me painfully. If I put my finger under the elastic, it doesn’t feel tight, but I just can’t tolerate narrow elastic around my natural waist.

I think I have enough fabric to re-cut the waistband and try to make it more comfortable. I can try a slightly longer piece of elastic. If that doesn’t work, I might try figuring out how to fit two rows of elastic at the top. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find wide elastic with gentle stretch. The wide elastic I’ve purchased is all pretty firm.

It’s too bad I find the waistband uncomfortable, because I really like the higher waisted look of the leggings, and the double layered wide fabric waistband holds in my tummy nicely. It’s only waistbands up at my waist that I find uncomfortable, so I may have to get rid of the fancy waistband and just do a simple stitched and turned lowered waistband with wider elastic on my next version. I’d still get the benefit of the nifty hidden gusset in the pattern.

I sewed four pairs of woven pants for my son. I made the pattern using an experimental draping/drafting method I’m working on. I’ve learned so much about how pants fit during the process. It’s really been quite horrifying to realize how much pants fitting “experts” and pattern drafters misunderstand about the geometry of pants fit. No wonder those fitting and drafting methods haven’t worked for me. I’m not quite ready to share the method, but I think it’s going to work.

I also made him a few pairs of sweatpants using the same experimental patternmaking method for the pattern, and a matching sweatshirt using Jalie 3355. I reinforce the knees on all of his pants with interfaced patches. Otherwise he blows out the knees in a few weeks.

Not pictured are four pairs of elastic waist pants I made for my daughter, a leather holster for my scissors, and some pillowcases I sewed with my kids.

I’ve been trying to use up some fabric from my stash, and I thought woven T-shirts would be a good way to use small pieces of fabric. I have not had good luck with woven T-shirts in the past, though. Many years ago, I sewed Vogue 8294, view B with short sleeves. It was nearly unwearable. I only wore it a few times, because when I lifted my arms even slightly (like to type on my keyboard) the sleeves pulled tight and cut into my arms and the whole shirt lifted up. That pattern just exemplified everything that is wrong with big four patterns, and is one of the reasons I hardly sewed anything for many years.

Now that there are many more options for patterns other than big four patterns, I have some patternmaking and fitting knowledge that I didn’t have years ago, and I have a custom dress form, I finally feel like I can sew anything I want, and make it fit like I want it to.

I remembered hearing a podcast where Jen Beeman from Grainline Studio said that her Scout Tee is one of her best selling patterns, so I decided to start with that pattern.

I had draped a sloper pattern on my new dress form, so I compared it to the Scout pattern to check the fit. I started with the back, and it looked like one size up from the size selected from my full bust measurement would be a pretty good fit, with only a length adjustment to fit my petite self. Going up a size surprised me, since I’m larger than a B-cup, so usually I would go down a size or two and then do a FBA. Good thing I checked! Indie pattern companies are great, but you have to figure out what changes you need to make for each company, since their sizing and fit vary.

Then I compared my sloper to the front pattern. I was confused at first because the shirt front was really wide above the bust level. The neckline was so wide it looked like it would gape. I looked up pictures of the #scouttee on Instagram, and saw a quite a few gaping necklines, which confirmed my suspicion. It didn’t gape on everyone, though, so either it works on some people, or they made fit changes.

I think the pattern was designed so that the front is the same width as the back, which is how basic loose fitting knit T-shirts are designed. However, loose fitting knit tees usually have high necklines, which minimizes the gaping problem caused by the extra width in front, and knit fabric is more forgiving of fit issues. The Scout does have a wedge of fabric taken out from the neckline/front shoulder seam to reduce gaping, but it apparently isn’t enough of a solution to work on everyone, based on the pictures I looked at.

I know Jen Beeman likes loose fitting boxy garments, but wide gaping necklines and extra folds of fabric at my front armholes aren’t really my thing, so I re-drafted the front pattern.

In case you are familiar with patternmaking and are curious, here’s what I did: I started with my sloper pattern, and added about 1.3 cm of width at the armholes. I eliminated the below the bust dart on my sloper, then I rotated part of the upper bust dart to become ease at the armhole (I think about 2 cm total – I already had 1 cm of the upper bust dart converted to armhole ease on my sloper, but I added more). This is basically an unsewn dart, and it makes the armhole much more comfortable. Then I rotated another portion of the upper bust dart into fullness at the hem, to give me the same width as the original pattern at the hem. The remaining portion of the upper bust dart I left as an actual dart, angling down slightly from the bust to the side seam. I used the original pattern as a guide for the amount of ease to add at the bust. Then I made the neckline narrower to fit the new pattern. I think I raised the neckline a bit, too, which I usually do since I’m petite.

I made sure my armholes were the same length as on the original pattern, and I didn’t make any changes to the sleeve pattern.

I made up a quick muslin, and wore it around the house to test out how comfortable it was. Even though it was made of quilting cotton, the muslin was pretty comfortable, and it gave me an acceptable range of movement. I wore it two days in a row, so I took that as a sign that this pattern was a success!

My first impression was that the pattern came out perfect on the first try, which was incredible, but then I did notice a couple of things that could be improved. The side seams swing forward slightly, which I think is an indication of too much length in the upper back area (I have a flatter than average upper back – the opposite of the more common round upper back fitting issue). The bust dart was also just a little too low.

I decided not to fix these minor issues. The tee already fit better than most of my clothes, and it was good enough as is. No, it was better than good enough. I’m trying to get over my perfectionism – done is better than perfect, right? I have a tendency to think things to death and then never get anything done.

I looked through my fabric stash, and labeled all of the most likely pieces with their width and yardage. I discovered that a lot of my fabric was in larger pieces than I thought – too large to waste fabric by making a Scout Tee from it, which in my size only takes about 1.3 yards. But I was committed to making Scout Tees, so I dug really deep into my stash, into those leftover bits that I’m not sure why I was keeping, and found some fabric to use.

This first Scout is made from some striped cotton gauze that used to be someone’s curtains. My mother had picked up a bin of fabric at an estate sale and had given it to me. It was mostly ugly quilting cotton that I use for making muslins, but these gauze curtains were included. There were some stains on them, so they must have been kitchen curtains, but I mostly cut around the stains, which don’t really show through the stripes anyway.

I wore this shirt out gardening on a hot day, and it was wonderfully breezy. It’s loose enough to give me reasonable freedom of movement, and it keeps me cooler than a knit T-shirt on a hot day, since it stands away from my body and allows lots of air to blow through. Of the three Scouts I made, this one is my favorite, probably because these colors look good on me.

The second is made from some stripy mustard colored cotton fabric I bought years ago. I had just enough to make a Scout from it. I’m glad to finally find a use for that piece of fabric that I’ve been staring at in my stash for years.

The third Scout is made from the cotton voile lining I removed from a thrift store dress I never wore – one of those “What was I thinking?” purchases. It’s underlined with cotton voile saved from one of my old nightgowns. I just barely squeezed the pattern onto the fabric I had. I ended up with a seam at the center back of the underlining. The fabric already has a couple of tiny holes starting – it wasn’t high quality fabric to begin with. It’s really comfortable, though, and I’ll wear it as long as I can.

This last one wins the prize for scrapbusting. It’s made from two small pieces of fabric rescued from former garments that I was hoarding just in case I needed a scrap of voile for something – and now they are transformed into a garment I will wear!

Links in this post identified by an asterisk (*) are affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I will earn a commission (at no additional cost to you). I was provided this pattern at no cost to me.

I made an arm for my DIY dress form using Bootstrap Fashion’s dress form arm pattern*. The cool thing about this dress form arm is that it is made to your measurements, and it actually looks like an arm! In the past, before this pattern came out, I had looked for dress form arm patterns and the only commercial pattern I found was Connie Crawford’s dress form arm pattern, which only comes in three sizes and is obviously drafted from a sleeve pattern. There are also several tutorials online and in Threads magazine that show how to draft a dress form arm pattern from a sleeve pattern, but again, you end up with something that doesn’t look very realistic.

This dress form arm should fit on any dress form that has a flat armhole plate and has shoulders ending at the natural shoulder point. It pins in place, but you could also sew ribbons onto it and tie it in place around the opposite armhole and around the neck if your dress form is not pinnable.

I am happy with my final dress form arm, but it took me a couple of tries to get it the right size. The pattern has some negative ease in it to allow for the fabric stretching as the arm is stuffed. On the first arm I sewed, the bicep measurement was too small, no matter how firmly I stuffed it. The elbow measurement was perfect, though, so I measured and found that at the elbow, the pattern measured 94% of my actual elbow measurement. I adjusted the bicep area of the pattern to be 94% of my actual bicep measurement, and on my second arm the bicep measurement was correct.

The amount of negative ease you need is going to vary a little depending on the fabric you use and how firmly you stuff the arm. The instructions for this pattern say to stuff the arm firmly, but another option is to make a lightly stuffed floppy arm so you can bend it to make dressing your dress form easier. If you want to stuff the arm less firmly, or you just want to make sure it ends up exactly the right size, you will need to adjust the pattern.

To avoid having to sew two arms to figure out if you need to adjust your pattern, you could sew a bicep-sized cylinder from the same fabric you will use for the arm. Sew one end closed, stuff the cylinder, then measure around it. Divide the pre-stuffed circumference measurement of the cylinder by the circumference after stuffing it to get your negative ease factor. Multiply your bicep measurement by the negative ease factor to get the total measurement that the pattern should be at the bicep. Multiply your elbow measurement by the negative ease factor to get the total measurement that the pattern should be at the elbow. Compare these numbers to the pattern measurements. There are two vertical seams on the arm, so divide the total amount you need to change the pattern by four to get the amount you need to add or subtract from each edge. Make pattern adjustments at the seam lines, blending to no change at the armhole area.

This pattern does not give you the option to input your arm length measurements when your pattern is created, so you will have to adjust the shoulder-to-elbow and elbow-to-wrist lengths manually. These are just basic length adjustments like you would make on any sewing pattern, so they are not difficult adjustments, but you do need to be careful to measure your arm correctly.

Here’s how to measure your arm length. To locate your shoulder point, raise and lower your arm slightly and feel for the dent between the bones of your body and those of the arm. Place your finger on your shoulder point and raise and lower your arm again. Your finger should stay stationary if it is in the right spot, not move with the arm. Mark this location.

If you are measuring yourself, tape the end of your tape measure to your shoulder point. Measure from your shoulder point to the point of your elbow and record this measurement. Then, with your arm slightly bent and the tape still going over the elbow point, continue measuring down to the prominent bone on the wrist.

I decided that rather than stuff the arm with fiber fill, I would experiment with stuffing it with polystyrene beads* that are used to stuff bean bag chairs. These beads weigh almost nothing, and they allow you to stuff the arm fairly firmly, but still pat it to adjust its shape a little. Polyester fiber fill will fill out the arm into a cylindrical shape, but with the polystyrene beads the arm can have a more natural somewhat flattened/oval cross section. Also, they weigh less than fiber fill, which makes it easier to pin the arm to the dress form. The beads do show through the fabric a little, though – it looks like my arm has goose bumps.

I added a bag with three tablespoons of sand in it to the wrist. I thought this might help the arm hang better. It does hang down just fine, but I don’t know if the sand was necessary. Then I packed polystyrene beads into most of the arm. I finished stuffing the shoulder area with polyester fiber fill. I like how stuffing the arm with the bean bag beads worked out. I would especially recommend using them as stuffing for larger sized arms, so your arm doesn’t end up too heavy to pin to your dress form.

I’m quite happy with this dress form arm* – it really looks like my arm!

* Links in this post identified by an asterisk (*) are affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I will earn a commission (at no additional cost to you).

I was provided this pattern at no cost to me.

Links in this post identified by an asterisk (*) are affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I will earn a commission (at no additional cost to you). I was provided this pattern at no cost to me.

Bootstrap Fashion sewing patterns has a pattern for a made-to-measure DIY dress form that you sew and stuff. They have a missy version* and a curvy version* of the pattern. If you are not familiar with Bootstrap Fashion patterns, you put in your measurements on their website and they generate patterns made to fit you, which you receive in just a few minutes.

Last year I noticed that someone from Bootstrap Fashion had purchased my Mini Stuffed Dress Form Pattern, and I wondered what they were going to use it for. Then a few months later I saw Dawn’s blog post about her Bootstrap Fashion dress form, and I thought, wow that looks really similar to my mini dress form. I went to Bootstrap’s web site, downloaded the pattern instructions for their DIY dress form, and noticed that there are many similarities to my mini dress form in the inner structure and assembly process. Aha, so that’s what they were doing with my pattern – using it as inspiration and research for their pattern.

I’ve had a few people ask me about altering my Mini Stuffed Dress Form pattern to match their measurements, which really isn’t easy to do, unless you are only making minor alterations. I thought the Bootstrap Fashion dress form might be a good pattern to refer these people to, but I wanted to try it first. I also wanted to make it because I thought it would be handy to have a soft, pinnable custom dress form that wouldn’t be ruined by steam or a little moisture, so I could use it to steam garments on or hang damp garments on to dry. My other custom dress form is a paper tape form, which would be damaged by moisture.

I’ve made a full scale version of the Bootstrap dress form, a half scale version, and the arm for the dress form. For the half scale version I made some changes to the pattern to make it easier to sew on a small scale, so that will get its own blog post. A post on sewing the arm is also coming up.

This post is about the full scale dress form, but here’s a sneak peek of the arm and half scale form:

Before I cut out any fabric, I decided to check the front and back profile against my actual body shape. I traced the shapes onto cardboard, cut them out, and held them up to my body. The front, while it didn’t match my every curve, was overall about right, so I left it alone. When I checked the back, I saw I needed to make some changes. Most of the problem was because I should have marked my waist at a higher location, located by tying a string around my waist. I’d recently taken my measurements for a pattern making system that puts your waist a little lower, so I didn’t think about that when I input my measurements for the dress form. I changed the center profile support pattern piece to match my shape, and it still all sewed together fine. I was actually surprised at how close the profile shapes were to my shape. The “bum protuberance” is about right.

The other change I made was to flatten the tummy. After comparing their pictures to my profile shape when I put in my measurements, I picked the smallest tummy shape that wasn’t flat, but after printing the pattern pieces I noticed that they did not look right. I realized that my tummy would naturally almost be flat, but sticks out into a rounded shape due to my swayback, and their pattern pieces were going to give the dress form a tummy further down below my waist, which I don’t have. I just straightened out the front princess lines between the waist and hip, and this gave me something closer to my actual shape.

After I sewed up the form, I noticed that my hip level was a little too low, so I’d suggest checking the vertical position of your waist and hips against the pattern and altering it if needed.

The scary thing about making this dress form is that you can’t just make a quick muslin and try it on. The dress form has negative ease and it changes shape as you stuff it, so even if you added extra ease to the side seams, I don’t think it would work to try it on your body.

The dress form is sewn from interfaced stable fabric. I wanted to use some linen fabric for the dress form, which is not very stable and stretches out, so I both interfaced the linen and underlined it with some stable home dec fabric. This made for some pretty thick layers, but my Singer 201 treadle sewing machine handled it just fine. This is something to think about, though, if you are sewing the dress form on a typical modern home sewing machine – choose fabric and interfacing that are very stable, but not too thick. You might also consider cutting the pattern on the cross grain so that the more stable direction of the fabric is going around the body.

Fusing interfacing on all that fabric took so long. Thankfully I used Pellon SF101 interfacing*, which fuses relatively quickly and easily compared to other woven interfacing I’ve used in the past. Finally I got smart and downloaded an interval timer app so I could set my phone to ding every ten seconds and I’d know when to move my iron. Every time I fuse interfacing I wish I had a steam press. I’ve had my eye on this small steam press*, but so far it hasn’t made it to the top of my sewing wish list (there are always a lot of things on that wish list!). At least I have an old iron without auto-shutoff to use for fusing interfacing.

Here are the cardboard support pieces and fabric pieces, all fused, cut, and ready to sew.

As I was sewing the dress form, I found Wonder Clips* worked well to hold the pieces together, since they were too thick for pins. I sewed the dress form together with upholstery thread for extra strength, since I did not topstitch over the seams with a zig-zag stitch as is suggested in the instructions.

Here’s the dress form wrong side out, mostly sewn together:

After that the center profile support piece is sewn on.

Then the bottom cover gets sewn on. I think the instructions have you sew on the bottom cover after turning the dress form right side out, but I sewed it on first, which works too. A note about the bottom cover – the pattern pieces are labeled “cut 2” but even on my vintage sewing machine it would have been too many layers of fabric to sew at the ends of the zippers if I did that. I cut the inner lining for the bottom cover from some thin fabric instead of the same fabric I used for the rest of the dress form, and that worked better.

The zippers are a nice touch – no hand sewing needed to close up the dress form!

The neck is stuffed with a sponge/foam piece, and then the dress form gets turned right side out. It kind of looked like it was giving birth to itself.

I actually stuffed this dress form three times. The first time, I stuffed the bust just firmly enough to keep it filled out, but it was still 2 cm (3/4″) to large. I thought it might be OK, but after trying my clothes on the dress form, I decided that it wasn’t going to work. The bust was also up too high, and the back neck to bust point measurement was 1 cm shorter than the number I had put in (I print-screened the page where I put in my measurements, so I’m sure I put it in right).

For the second try, I stuffed the bust just enough to match my measurements, which left the bust wrinkly, but still up too high. It looked awful, and the wrinkles showed through clothes. I also noticed that the shoulders sloped too much, and I wondered if that was because I had stuffed the shoulder area so firmly.

I decided to try to alter the bust. I clipped out the extra fabric to see how much fabric I needed to take out. Then out came all the stuffing. Again.

I unpicked the underbust seams, trimmed off 2 cm (3/4″) from the lower bust seams, and re-stitched them.

The third time, I thought I would try stuffing the form mostly with old T-shirts supplemented with polyester fiber fill around the edges instead of just fiber fill. My thought was that the fabric stuffing would not exert as much pressure on the dress form, and might not stretch out the fabric as much and pull the shoulders down so much. It worked OK, though my dress form is a now a bit lumpy, the shoulders still slope too much, and it’s pretty heavy.

If I was to stuff it again (nope, not gonna do that!), I’d probably just use fiber fill. Adding old clothes or fabric scraps is a good way to save on using so much stuffing, though. Just keep the fabric scraps in the center so lumps won’t show. Inserting chunks of Styrofoam or something similar into the center would also work to reduce the amount of fiber fill needed, and would be especially useful for a larger size form.

The dress form now matches my measurements pretty closely. The altered bust is a bit droopy looking, but I’ll take that over being too large or having awful wrinkles. It’s still a little too high and the bust points are too close together now, which I couldn’t fix.

Here’s how this dress form compares to my actual body shape. The tan custom made dress form matches my size and shape almost exactly. The bust, waist and hip measurements are the same on both forms, but you can see that the shape is different. The tan dress form’s shoulders extend out a little past my actual shoulder points, which is part of the reason they are so much wider.

Since the shoulders are too sloped, I pinned some shoulder pads onto the form to get it to match my shoulder slope. The shoulder pads also allowed me to give the dress form forward shoulders like I have.

The dress form will work for me for the uses I have planned for it (steaming garments, primarily). It’s about my size, but it doesn’t match my body shape exactly. If I didn’t have my other custom dress form, I think I could use this form for initial fittings, but I would still need to make final alterations on my body.

When I started this project, I really wasn’t expecting the bust to come out perfectly, but I sewed it as-is for testing purposes. The bust is a really complicated shape of the body to try to reproduce the shape of, it varies in shape from person to person, and the shape changes as you stuff the dress form. If I was making this as my only dress form, I would have made the bust smaller than mine and then put a stuffed bra on the form to give me more control over the size, location, and shape of the bust.

If you want to use this dress form for fitting and your bust is larger than a B-cup, I suggest substituting your underbust measurement plus 6 inches (15 cm) for your actual bust measurement when you put in your measurements. This way your dress form will have a bust smaller than yours so you can put a bra on the dress form and stuff it, allowing you more control over the location, size, and shape of the bust.

I experimented with inputting an even smaller bust measurement to try to make a completely flat chest, but judging by the pattern preview, this distorted the body shape and did not result in a flat chest. So if you are a B-cup or smaller and want to reduce the size of the bust, I’d suggest putting in your actual measurements, then manually altering the pattern to have a smaller bust. If you are not confident making this alteration, you could sew up the pattern as-is, stuff it, and if the bust is not right, cut it open, pull out some stuffing, hand sew it shut, and put a stuffed bra on the form.

Here are the links to the dress form patterns, if you want to try making one for yourself.
Missy Dress Form*
Curvy Dress Form*

* Links in this post identified by an asterisk (*) are affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I will earn a commission (at no additional cost to you).

I was provided this pattern at no cost to me.