Monday 13 December 2010

Dummy in need of a home

Having just had one of my most frustrating days in my dressmaking life trying to fit my Crepe dress muslin to my body, I’ve made the decision to purchase an adjustable dress form. I did five minutes important research and have decided to go for the strangely named Lady Valet.  For some weird reason it reminds me of the iron-clad foundation girdles my cousin and I used to snigger at in the back of my Aunty Brenda’s Grattan catalogue – I think the range was known as ‘Miss Mary of Sweden”! I digress - technically there are several dress forms that all perform the same function, but aesthetically this one wins hands down because it just looks nicer than the others - it has a plain wooden base and is neutral coloured so blends seamlessly into the background (well as much as a life sized dressmakers dummy ever can).  I presented my idea to my husband in a “do you want to get me something I REALLY WANT for Christmas?” kind of proposal and he leapt at the chance as it means he doesn't have to think of a present, so everybody’s happy.  

Which leads me onto the title of this post.  You see, I’ve already got a very nice, wooden bottomed, neutral coloured dress dummy which is great for photographing clothes…. 


….and seeing what fabrics look like draped over it.  


.. and generally being a nice piece of furniture. But, it’s not adjustable, it’s a standard shop display dummy with traditional measurements of 36-26-36, which sadly are not quite my measurements (ahem), so I can’t use it for accurate clothes fitting.  And as I can’t justify two dummies in my soon-to-be-unveiled sewing area (‘why not’? a little voice in my head says, ‘one for putting nice outfits on, and one for dressmaking…’) I need to say goodbye to the old one.

So, I’m very happy to offer somebody my lovely, classy dressmaking dummy completely free of charge if you can give her a good home. This is probably only of interest to London sewists, or anybody visiting London in the near future, as I live in West London and you’d need to collect it - although I don’t mind delivering locally.  It dismantles and can easily fit into the boot of a car (or even be carried on a tube as it’s very light). If you think you can make use of her, please let me know by leaving a comment.  If more than one of you fits the geographical/dummy loving bill, then I’ll toss a coin or put your names in a hat, or some other highly technical method.  If nobody’s interested, then I’ll put her on eBay, but I’d much rather she went to a fellow blogger. 

I’ll keep you up to date on my disastrous muslin fitting saga soon …. x

Sorry, should have mentioned in the original post.  I'll draw names out of a hat on 20th December. x

5 comments:

  1. I would love her but alas, she's a bit off of my size too and I'm across the pond. I hope she finds a good home!

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  2. ooo - yes please! I'm very happy to give her a new home!

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  3. I fit the geographical/dummy loving bill! I've been wanting a dummy for ages but funds haven't quite stretched that far yet. I'm sure lots of us will be interested in your generous offer so I'd love it if you could stick me in the hat. I hope you enjoy your Lady Valet! Cx

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  4. I dream of a dressmaker's dummy. Sadly, not only do I need a few sizes up from that, but also either 1) a bigger house or 2) a different husband... Or, as has been suggested by said helpful husband, 3) dispose of some of my existing fabric, sewing notions, and patterns to make space for a dummy... but as the latter is a complete non-starter, that leaves me with 1) or 2) or no dummy at all (for the record, I do have rather a lot of fabric, and an extremely patient husband...)!

    Sorry to hear about the fitting issues with the Crepe muslin. Hopefully you'll go over the process in greater depth here so that late-starters like me may avoid the same pitfalls! (I'm currently and unexpectedly without a sewing space, which is very frustrating... stupid building work which was supposed to be finished and isn't, leaving us without even the room to put up a Xmas tree... grrr).

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  5. I came upon your post because I'm just starting out with dressmaking and not wanting to splurge on a proper tailor's mannequin, can I just settle for one similar to yours which is more affordable?

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