Sewing j, well I have a duplicate of my body made a good few years ago now, and she goes over an existing dress dummy stand I closed her right down as far as she would go (if opened up stuff falls through the gaps). On top of the original stand I wound layers of wadding around and around, and then covered this with a dry cleaners poly bag so my duplicate could be easily slid on or off. However since my wrap was done, I sadly have put on more weight, so now I have padded my duplicate out. In order to do this I have been messing about with a panelled sloper and knew this was quite a good fit on me, so I have padded her out and then put several old men’s M&S thermal vests on top – these are brilliant as they are slightly ribbed, so it is easy to get straight lines in place. I marked my centre fronts and backs with a contrast coloured tacking line – so easy to do because of the ribbing, Over these tacking lines I have sewn some thick heavy string weights – the sort you find in the bottom of net curtains/shower curtains. I have also found where I want the underarm seam to be so another line of weights, and I intend to also sew these weights down the shoulder princess seam lines, and across the shoulder seams – the reason for these weights is that you can feel the ridge through any fabric that is then put on top.
So with the sloper pinned into position I was able to carry on inserting some wadding where I thought I needed it and made sure this made for a very snug fit. Due to the layers of vests and wadding I have a super thick layer to be able to pin into and I can also then tissue fit, then make a toile in calico, tweak the fitting and hopefully this will then fit me. My reasoning if I pin tightly onto my stand, this is my ease.
On one garment I ended up with more than the norm vertical darts, started off with two in the back and two in the front, but it needed more shaping, so I pinned in yet another dart between the original and the side seam, and it looked good. When off the stand and I was transferring these markings back to my pattern, I thought I should straighten the second dart up, and I did, but that was wrong, it looked far better when it was at an angle and in fact this has given me a very nice back fitting.
I must admit I initially used any string weights I could get hold of, but I have now bought some really thick weights – not easy to find, but I got my current lot from Merrick & Day in Lincolnshire – mail order and chose the heaviest/thickest one that they do.
With all the wadding on the original stand my duplicate does not move, and this really does help make a very solid stand to work on. Why not give this method a try and see how you get on, hunt around and see what you can find, the wadding I already had for other things, and the vests had all seen better days and thus does not matter being used for this purpose, anyway no one is going to see what is underneath. Sadly all my localish fabric/haberdashery shops have now gone so I am rather forced into mail order, and it took some finding to find this lovely thick string weight.
If you have a garment that is an excellent fit on you, why not try padding your stand out and covering this with something like a tee shirt or vest to hold it in place, and then put your excellent fit garment over the top and carry on stuffing in wadding where necessary it might just work for you.
My dress stand is not a particularly pretty sight, at this very moment I have a very thin scarf draped over her to hide the horrible shape that is me.
Good luck and I hope this might help you with your tissue fitting and then real garment fitting.
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