Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Padding the Dressform


Matilda needs a little padding to be more like me. The batting is an inexpensive polyester quilt and craft batting that was in my stash for years.

I stretched a base layer of the batting around Matilda then started adding cut pieces in key places. The batting pieces were sewn together with big loose stitches using a long needle I had from making Cabbage Patch dolls for my kids.

To make my shape I looked in the mirror at myself next to Matilda and kept trying the Moulage on her to see how it filled out.








When it looked like I had enough padding I pinned the moulage edges to the batting. I put bias tape on the arm and neck edges and machine stitched it down with the batting edge sandwiched between. The batting is machine sewn in the hem of the moulage and I hand stitched along the zipper. This made a removable "jacket" for Matilda.














Zipped up in her denim jacket Matilda looks almost dressed. The shaping with this jacket is not perfect, but it is surprisingly close. I would like to try a moulage with full princess seams front and back plus some other shaping seams and use some denser batting. The jacket compresses too easily now. I also need a form with a smaller and less perky bust. Matilda's skyward protrusions prevent me from really using this for blouse fitting.