Bust

Many moons ago I read about how to make your own dress form out of duct tape. You, too, can read the article. Look over here.

Many moons before that, when Mr. Crafty and I were in the very early stages of misty eyed romance, a friend of a friend was finishing her senior year college art project, which involved hundreds of gold spray painted plaster casted breasts. She set up shop in the metal working barn, which was full of burly, silent, arty dudes who were clearly a little crawly about all these topless ladies wandering about.

I offered up my boosiasms with the agreement that I'd get the plaster cast when she was done with it. Months went by with no news, and I found myself too busy with school and work to stop by the show. When I finally got ahold of the artist she told me she'd sent the bust off with a friend of mine, but she didn't remember who it was. Thus began the search for my breasts. I asked everyone I knew, Did you get my bust?

In the meantime, a bust had popped up in the window of an apartment Mr. Crafty and I passed on our way to school. He was convinced that it was mine, but I thought it couldn't possibly be. They, the girls, just didn't look right to me.

A year later I was in a bar and I ran into a friend who'd recently returned from a year-long silent retreat. I asked her if she'd been the recipient of my breasts. She said yes, and she'd tried to contact me, but I'd left for China, so she gave it to some of her friends. They'd had in in their window for a while. Perhaps I'd even seen it, they lived near me.

Ha! I flashed a large portion of Flagstaff for over a year and didn't even know it. Heck, I was flashing myself for over a year and didn't even know it.

This dress form had an "almost didn't make it" history, as well. I bought the duct tape for this project a year and a half ago, but didn't make the thing for fear that it would be crushed during the move to Chicago. After the move, the tape languished in the linen closet (a.k.a. hurricane-like depository for crafty accouterments) until we found ourselves bored on a rainy Sunday. Turns out that making your own dress form is a pretty funny process. Also, near the end of it you understand first hand why the mothers of feminism were so anti-corset.

See, you begin looking all proud of yourself. You're saying to yourself, Look at how I'm saving hundreds of dollars! I'm awesome. This is awesome.

Then you move on to, Holy moly! This is freaking ridiculous. I look like I belong in one of the Terminator movies, and I can't breathe.

Finally, you get tough. I'm gonna show this duct tape what's what. Who cares if I can't breathe? I don't!

The end result is pretty cool.

I still need to find an object to make a stand for it. I could just hang it on a hanger, as suggested in the tutorial. I'm thinking that no matter what I hang it on, though, it might be up too high for me to properly establish drape, etc. when fitting new sewn objects to it. I am a short one.

For those of you who might consider making this, we found that small bits of tape worked better than just trying to wrap a long piece 'round and 'round.