Sunday, July 3, 2011

How to Cover an Adjustable Dress Form

Dritz dress form before
I have a Dritz adjustable dress form. And to be perfectly honest I find it very ugly!
Its an awful fuchsia color, and I hate how you can see all the adjustable panels. I've been wanting to take picture of clothes on it, but the purple shows through light or thin fabrics. To me it looks very unprofessional. How much nicer so many Etsy listings would be if they did my tutorial, which will take less then an hour!

You Will Need
  • 1 to 1 and half yards stretchy jersey material in a color of your choice. I choose tan, but something like a light floral could be very pretty.
  • scissors
  • a sewing machine or serger
  • pins
  • a bra, or any other paddings you would like to put on the dress form before covering it.
So first put on your padding if you have any. Then wrap you fabric tightly around it, keeping the stretch horizontal rather than vertical. Then pin close to the dress form down the back. When this is finished the seam line will be like the contour of your spine, unlike other covering which are sewn up the sides.
Back Contour

You will also be sewing a seam running along each shoulder, so pin there and cut. Also, leave around 6 inches hanging off the dress form.
pinned shoulder

Then sew or serge it up, cut your seam allowances and flip your excess fabric at the bottom into the inside. You can do this with a Dritz but I'm not sure about other dress forms. Hem, make a casing with draw string, or cut to size if this is not an option for you. I also recovered the pincushion at the top to match.

Tada!  A now professional looking dress form, the ugly paneling and color all hidden :D
I also recovered the pin cushion on the top, but you don't have to do that if you don't want to.

5 comments:

  1. This is a great idea! I'm just wondering how it would work if the dress form was opened up at all...I guess you could add batting or something to the areas that are "open"?

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  2. I think you could use padding for the open areas. There is a small open area, as well as lines/dials and I didn't pad them and you cant even see where they are. The jersey smoothed the look out all nicely. I would think padding would only be needed if you opened it to the max and had very large holes.

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  3. I have an antique sewing dress form, its a striking blue I would like to find a manufacturer that sells dress form covers I have no idea where to look. I have tried researching this, but I haven't come up with much can you help advise. Thank you Very Much...1900sBride

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  4. Love how you did the cover. I too, can't stand to look at my dress form. I found a stretchy t-shirt to put on mine but the neck is still exposed. I am going to try doing a cover like yours. MUCH better looking and will stay in place. Thanks so much for the tutorial.

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  5. lol I have the same hideous dress form. I've been meaning to spray paint the base with plastic paint and draft a cover for it. I just hate that weird burgandy and pink combo, some things from the 90's should have stayed in the 90's. XP

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