Making a mannequin - the Conclusion

The mannequin making has been a great success.  I will now be able to take much better pictures of my outfits, which was my main aim.  She is certainly accurate enough to my body that I will be able to use her for fittings for most of my sewing.  I tend to usually make semi fitted items, I would have reservations about using her for very fitted items.
She is quite firm, not squidgy like a teddy bear, this might be because I used rags to stuff her and not propper stuffing material.  The down side of using rags is that she is quite heavy.  I have made her firmer by coating the outside of the 'jumper' with a layer of paint.  Eventually I am going to paint her a pretty bodice so that she looks nice stood in the corner of my conservatory/workroom.  However, I'm far too eager to use her this week to do the painting. 
I am planning to finally blog a whole weeks worth of work outfits.  I have tried this before but never succeeded to get all my outfits.  So watch this space, I'll be back tommorrow evening with outfit number 1.
P.S.  I thought the mannequin needed a name, so I have called her Millie.

Making a Mannequin - Part 2

 Having left 'the body' on its pole overnight, I was very releived to find that it was OK in the morning and hadn't collapsed in any way.

I took her off the pole and measured her vital statistics.  She was a bit wider than me round the waist and a bit deficient in the bust (even more so than me).  These were easily rectified by tying a string tightly round the waist to bring it in.  To correct the bust, I found an old bra and stuffed it with socks (what else).

I didn't like the glaring black on the tape and I had a cream polar neck shirt that I never wear because it is so thin.  Here she is loking much better.

I couldn't resist trying her out, so I grabbed a shirt from the ironing pile and tried it on her, to make sure that she worked.

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Making a Mannequin- Part 1

I have always wanted a mannequin or dressmakers dummy, but in all my years dressmaking I have never justified the expense.  The time has come to rectify this situation, but I am still not willing to buy one.  A few years ago I read in a magazine about how to make a dressform from duct tape and stuffing. 

There are many websites that describe the process, but basically you wear an old T-shirt, wrap your torso in tape, cut it off and tape up the cut then stuff the shape and you have something that is similar to your body shape.

I enlisted the help of daughter to help 'wrap' me and here is the very unflattering picture of me in a half wrapped state.

I have been saving odd bits of old clothes and addments of material etc.  which I used to stuff the bodyform.  I also inserted a tube that had held a wall planner up the center of the form so that I could insert my 'stand' which used to be a mop!!

And here she is in her 'raw' state.

There's some finishing to be done to smooth her out, but overall I'm very pleased.