Making Progress...kinda

Since my last post, I've made progress on my various sub-projects. These are all parts of the main goal, but they do take time.

On New Year's Day, my husband, Rob, and I made a duct-tape body double of my torso to put over my new dress form. We did this for two reasons: the dress form was a bit smaller than me, and my body has rounded parts that are not necessarily standard on dress forms.

This was fun to do, partly because I like working on projects with Rob (he frequently thinks of things I don't, and he has often helped me with my creative ideas), and partly because I've wanted to do this for years. It took longer than the tutorials I watched, probably because I'm larger than the people in the tutes, and we'd never done this before, so we needed to problem solve as we progressed. But Rob and I are both kind of perfectionists, so we both wanted to do it right.

I'm not a fan of silver duct tape...I find it kind of hard on my eyes, as it is reflective. So after grabbing a ginormous roll of silver, I opted to get a roll of extra strong white tape. We decided to use this for the second layer.  The first layer was rather soft, not what I was expecting. But that also explained why so many of the people I watched had really squishy results. The best video (linked here) recommended three layers, but we decided two was plenty. We were almost out of tape after the second layer, and as I was fairly immobile, wrapped in layers of webbing and polymer, I was not really able to travel. It was a bit like armor, and kind of cool in that respect. But I couldn't bend, slouch, or sit, and 2 1/2 hours of standing in uncomfortable shoes had taken its toll, and Rob had developed two blisters from all the tape cutting. We managed to gum up three pairs of scissors, too! I de-gummed them today with acetone.

When Rob cut the form up the center back, it was such a relief! I had to go to the bathroom, my back and feet hurt, and it was almost time for me to start making dinner. We hung the taped shell of my body on the dress form, just to see how it looked. It was a humbling experience. I hate my belly enough as it is, but seeing what I look like in 3D, well... let's just say I have inspiration for more weight loss. I'm currently at the lowest weight I've been in about 20 years, but there's certainly more to lose!

 

I've been busy with returning to work last week, but I've been working on other parts of the project. I'm tired when I get home, so I don't often have the motivation to do projects that involve several hours on weeknights. So, I crocheted one of the mitts I posted last week, and as you saw on Friday, I worked on the bracelet in class. I did more on it Friday evening...it's now about 2/3 finished.

In order to work on this project in my very small sewing space, I had to clear a lot of accumulated clutter. That actually was really good for me, and I'm donating some of what I unearthed to Ms. Sinclair's supplies. ☺️ And now I actually have room to work in there. That was Saturday.

Today, I padded and stuffed my dress form, and taped up the back to make it permanent. It's very cool to be able to try things on the form. I checked the measurements, and it's pretty much exact. When I was done with that, I got to break out my patterns, cut out the parts I needed, and figure out the measurements for the corset. This was surprisingly challenging! You have to use very specific measurements to determine size, and then what size to cut the gusset panels. It was more complicated than I expected it to be!

 


So... now I have a fully functional dress form, accurate pattern pieces ready to put to the test, and a clean sewing space. Woohoo! (ignore the crap on the floor under my computer desk...empty bag of stuffing, recycling, papers to file... and the top of my desk has accumulated clutter...I was kinda just tossing stuff on there while cleaning the rest of the area!)

Here is my progress on the bracelet:

What most of you saw me doing in class...

Just a bit more to go, and this part will be complete!

This week, I will work on my other mitt (I brought the first one to class on Friday), cut out the chemise and corset test fabric, sew them up, and hopefully finish the bracelet.

I met a friend for lunch on Saturday, and afterwards we went to Shipwreck beads. I picked up some coral beads in two sizes. Coral was a popular material for jewelry, and people from  the late 1700s through the mid- 1800s believed coral had health benefits. So if I have time, I might knot myself a necklace (beads strung on silk cord with knots between each bead).