Fitting Essentials: Customize Your Dress Form

Class Preview

Make fitting, designing and altering garments easier and more effective. Customize any dress form to replicate your body perfectly.

Choosing a Dress Form

Meet your instructor, expert sewer Judy Jackson, and learn about the three varieties of dress forms you can customize — studio, adjustable and foam — including their advantages and disadvantages. Whether you already own a dress form or are considering purchasing one, you’ll be delighted to discover how to modify it for a perfect fit every time you sew.

Measuring & Evaluating Shape

Grab a fitting buddy to calculate both your linear and depth measurements, evaluate your shape and compare your measurements with those of the dress form you’ve chosen. This will give you the numbers you’ll need for making your dress form cover and for padding out or trimming the form itself.

The Dress Form Cover

When working with a studio or adjustable form, you’ll need to make a cover that fits you like a second skin. Judy suggests suitable dress patterns with princess seams and explains how to alter a pattern to make it work as a dress form cover. The foam form usually includes a cover, which you can customize to your own measurements.

Fitting the Cover

Try on your dress form cover and work with your fitting buddy as you learn how to take in seams, let them out or add darts to address fit issues unique to your body. When you’ve got your fit just right, add markings to your cover as landmarks for future dressmaking.

Creating Shape

Judy walks you through the process of padding out your studio or adjustable dress form to fill out your custom cover and replicate your shape exactly. You’ll learn how to feather the edges of your batting to get a smooth look, and how to cut out layers of padding and foam for the curves of your tummy, thighs and bust. Judy also shows how to mask the dials and gaps of an adjustable form.

Customizing a Foam Form

A studio or adjustable form is typically purchased in a slightly smaller size and padded, while a foam form can be purchased larger and carved down to size — literally! Judy wields an electric carving knife to demonstrate how to shape the bust, waist and back, then adds batting to smooth out and shape the form.

The Final Fit

Your dress form just needs a few finishing touches. Check the final fit with Judy’s guidance, then mark side seams, neck and waistline with braid to use as guidelines in future projects. Judy shows how to cover the arm and neck holes with fabric for a smooth finish and shares tips for putting your new body double to good use!