Chapter Two- Let The Planning Begin!

The purpose of making the corset toiles was to get a decent base shape to work with, both on my own living body and for the paper tape form we finished tonight.

I’m happy to try my hand at a couple more corset toiles to get it perfect but I needed a good enough base to make a new dressmakers dummy. Part of the design will be draped on the form and my old one is much bigger than I am after weight loss- so a new one was an absolute requirement.

MrT is a kindred spirit, we both love “projects” and he’s usually happy to help me out. This is my third body clone with him as the paper tape draper and things went very speedy- from start to finish he had it done in just over an hour and a half.

I wore the white corset toile under an old long-line white singlet (which was sacrificed in the process) and we used brown gummed paper tape. It’s 48mm wide and there’s a heckuvalot on a roll. For the princely sum of $15- it’s an affordable experiment.

Let the wrapping begin!

I followed some advice from The Sewing Forum about using something like a meter ruler to alleviate some of the belly-pooch-fitting-troubles but got creative and used some of the leftover cable ties instead. It worked a treat! Such a good suggestion- used in a slightly different manner- with excellent results. You can see the idea in action below.

Smoothing out the pooch!

Once the first layer was covered MrT went over the whole form twice more, paying attention to key areas like the shoulders, the hem and the waistline. We stopped with about 5m of tape left on the roll so we could cut me out of it. He marked the centre back, then some horizontal lines at 5cm intervals so I could match it back up. Once it was off I used gaffer tape to stick it back together- it has greater holding power at this stage! Then I covered the black tape with the last of the brown paper tape so it looks nicer. Here’s some of the final pics we snapped of the process.

Having the form done is a HUGE weight off my mind. It might not be perfect, I might still change my mind about an underbust/overbust corset- but the main points of waist, hips and pooch have all been taken into consideration with this form. If I decide I want to wear an underbust corset with a bra I can always stick a bra over the top of this form for boobs… or make another one for the cost of another roll of paper tape and a singlet *shrugs*.

It’s currently swinging on a coat hanger but I will be plopping it on top of an old TINY dressform once I fix the base.

I am relieved and exhausted at the moment. It’s a rewarding process and I will do it again but it takes a lot out of you- not being able to move!