Project 15 of many. . .

The need for this project developed as I realized that I could not finish project 13 without it. One of the bridesmaids that I am making a dress for is itty-bitty and I could not for the life of me figure out if her dress was going to fit her without having her try it on. Unfortunately she lives in Hong Kong. I spent the day trying to create what I imagine her upper torso must look like given the measurements I have.

I started out with a piece of cardboard for her shoulders.
Using modge podge and a scoring tool (knife) I began to give the piece of cardboard as much shape as I could. This picture also gives you an idea of how small the form is - I "draped" it over a size 3t child's form.

Inside of the form (that's the magic of Macy's)

Unfinished torso and skirt

More shaping

Once I had the basic shape that I wanted I covered everything in about 10 layers of brown paper. I wanted a sturdy and thick structure.

I over-stuffed the inside of the form with polyfil and put a 10lb bag of beans in the bottom of the form to help keep it upright (This form will sit on a table instead of resting on a pole). Then I closed up the bottom, the neck and the armholes with more cardboard, duct tape, glue and brown paper.

Next I sprayed the form with carpet adhesive and covered the form with batting.

To finish everything up I made a knit cover to put over the form. I stapled the fabric to the bottom of the form and put a piece of cardboard over the bottom to cover up the staples.
I would like to do this project again sometime with different measurements. I would extend the project over a period of about a week. I needed to finish this today, so I did not allow the glue to dry all the way which led to the form warping when I took the stays out from the inside and stuffed it with polyfil. As a result one of the shoulders appears higher and the waist doesn't seem to go in as far on one side. All in all I'm not too upset with the results from my first attempt.