Show me your form!

Welcome to "Show Me Your Form", hosted by Tiffany at Shabby Scraps~

If you don't have a dress form, make your self one with duct tape! I've always wanted to do this. Instructions here!

These are my "double mint twins".

They are both vintage dress forms, one was my Grandma's, and I acquired the second one later.

I've used them for various projects and eventually want to display my costumes and vintage clothing on them in my parlor, bedroom, and craft room.

Currently one is wearing a vintage pearl collar, a lamp shade carcass, and on top of that my 15" Franklin Mint Vinyl Scarlett doll's wire hoops for her costumes. I have to store them on something round, and for now this fits. However, Miss Scarlett actually has doll dress forms of her own! Here's one featuring the Blue Mill Dress,

The other twin is wearing my unfinished red staircase robe from Gone With the Wind. All she needs is the friggin' sleeves sewn on (which are sitting on top), but as you may have seen in my last post I have to learn to use my new sewing machine first.

I made this from an exsisting vintage robe. It zips up the front. I didn't want real velvet as I actually want to wear this garment as an every day housecoat. It had regular sleeves and I cut them at the elbow, and tried to get that draped sleeve effect as much as I could with the fabric I cut off. I think this will work out perfectly, because having the really large draped sleeves like the real robe wouldn't be practical. I long to wear this Christmas morning, so I must conquer my machine by then, lol!

Here is Scarlett in the staircase robe~

Closeup of fine lace and netting behind it~

A rare sketch of Walter Plunkett's original design for the robe...

My robe as I found it on eBay.

I sewed the lace and tulle on by hand. I wish I could afford fine lace and net!

A shot before I cut the sleeves off.
What is a staircase robe without a staircase?

That is my doll's dress form and red robe on the post.

Wow, my staircase is looking much better these days!

I also have a torso dress form.

I like to use it for vignettes like this one I did for Valentine's Day, see all of my heart necklaces?

Displayed on the form is an antique velvet waist from the 1870's. It is the MOST LUCIOUS velvet ever. They certainly don't make things like they used to. I believe it to be silk. Here is a slideshow featuring it on yet another form made of wire. You will also see a bustle gown from the period which the waist would've been worn with. The peice used to be heavily beaded. I wish I could've seen her in all of her glory.

Here is one of my prized possessions, an antique period gown from 1910. It is made of aqua moire taffeta. Beautiful tissue silk draping, pearls, lace, and faux flowers. It has some repairs to make at the shoulders, but other than that she is in excellent condition~sans a few pearls here and there. It has steel boning and an attached silk petticoat. These are old scans, but you can see more details of the gown in this slideshow.

I musn't forget to show you Scarlett's "Shame" gown. I think it's my favorite. Here it is in the works.

I love embellishing pre-made dresses.

Here's what the dress looked like before. I got it for $25 on eBay. Ripped off the sleeves and added the stones. The train is just pinned in the pic, need to sew that and add feathers and she's good to go. It's more red than the film version but that's ok for the price!

"And put on plenty of rouge, I want you to look your part tonight!" She's so beautiful here,

Wow, this post is getting much to long! I shall try to simplify it somewhat, lol!

The twins have helped me with my Drapery Dress and Jump dress too.

NOTE: let me tell you that many of these photos are taken in rooms before they were redone. (We're redoing our 100 year old home). So you'll see boxes and junque everywhere. It's slowly getting better! My craft room is full of all of the stuff we had to move out of Nova's room when I found out we were expecting! His room was to be used for storage for a while... not any more!

Here's a shot of the "Jump" dress from Titanic. I embellished a prom dress to look like Rose's gown. I added a tulle underlay, beading, rhinestone buttons, and cut the overskirt at an angle. You can see more in yet another slideshow here!

The "Drapery" dress I bought on ebay. I had to take it in 6 inches, and redo the collar and sleeves. Thank goodness I had those twins!!

YES! That's Kevin as Rhett! I cut and colored a wig for him, made him shave, and dyed his brows and mustache. LOL! I even bought him a pinky ring, *snort*

If you're still here and you're not saying "ENOUGH already!" then you can see more pics in this album.

Kevin before morphing into Rhett. HEY! If you squint hard enough you can see my mannequin in the background, along with one of the twin's torsos on the floor with Dorothy's dress on!

I'm sure I could bore you with more, (such as Rose's Tea dress from Titanic), but before I go I'll show you a pic of my mannequin. She's kinda spooky, and about 7ft. tall. She was nekkid, but I threw this vintage plastic apron on her for now. Like her "Rose" wig?

Then I walked around the house with camera in hand and was surpised to see how many other little dress forms I had.

My newest addition to my GWTW collection. Kevin's cousin surprised me with this.

Thank you Vickie!

Tiffany, I hope this helps your husband to see how much these gals mean to us. Thank you for hosting "Show Me Your Form". Nadia is a true gem of a find, enjoy her! I look forward to meeting Miss Kitty.

Old Faithful...

*Are your speakers on?*

; )

Here is my 1956 Kenmore sewing machine. She was rescued from the trash back in '93, thanks to Oprah, lol! I was visiting a friend and I kept saying I had to get going, but I got sucked in to watching the Oprah Show. When it was over I was walking out to my car when I heard someone ask, "Do ya need a sewing machine?" They were carrying it to the dumpster and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time! I put my girl in the car and couldn't wait to start a project.

I don't sew much, and don't know much about machines~or sewing for that matter. Over the years Old Faithful has endured much abuse. I never changed the needle according to fabric weight. I didn't adjust tension unless she acted up. I oiled her maybe twice. I sewed denim, and many layers together at once and she barely complained. I sewed sheer and net fabrics and cringed as I listened to her knocking.

But last year she'd had all she could take. The last thing I sewed on her were these little "Airmen" hats. I cut them down from adult sizes to fit the boys for my brother's wedding. I almost didn't get the second one finished. I was really crossing my fingers and gritting my teeth on that one, but she held on for me!
You can see the difference in the "toddler size" and "adult size" here~
Thank you Old Faithful!!

Alas, she will not feed fabric any longer. I try to run something thru and it just stays in the same place with a whirling sound as if the belt is loose. It's not the belt, and I changed it just to be sure. I oiled it. I checked the tension. There aren't any tangled threads. I'm hoping it's just something with the feed dogs but I haven't had time to mess with it or take it anywhere to be looked at. I swear I'll get her fixed one day and take good care of her this time!


I knew I needed a new machine, for more reasons than one. The number one reason being that I had to have an automatic buttonholer! In order to do the ruffles on Scarlett's BBQ dress, I must make roughly 1,500 buttonholes!!! (GASP) Not to mention this will be done on reproduction BBQ fabric that costs $600.00.
Um, yah. Don't wanna mess that up.

This is a project that has been haunting me for 4 years.

So, Old Faithful has been somewhat replaced.

The thing is, I'm scared to death of sewing machines.
I am more afraid of them than computers! Kevin bought me this brand new Kenmore the Christmas BEFORE LAST, and I have not sewn a single stitch! There is still a piece of film underneath the presser foot from the factory. It came with a video and it looks like rocket science to me. This is a HUGE obstacle I want to overcome, SOON.

All aboard!

Come along with us on Branson's Scenic Railways!

Nova's ready to hop on!

Tickets please! Nova isn't so sure about this guy...

Nova's ticket was punched with his initial "N". Pretty cool, eh?

And we're off! Look, a bridge! We get to go over it...this is Lake Taneycomo.

Let's go to the observation car!

Boy, you can see everything from up here!

Whew! It's bright up here! Very tight seating too. There wasn't room for all of us! Kevin's on the other end of the car~

There's Kevin in the hat! A few cars down you can see another observation dome.

Whoa, we're going around a curve!

We're way up high~ look at the pretty country side...

On the way back, we had a whole car to ourselves. If I remember right, it was from 1954. It was relaxing here, and we could hear the music better. Traveling songs such as Sentimental Journey, Pennsylvania 65000, Chattanooga ChooChoo, ect.

We went through long dark tunnels and saw a winding stream along the way.

Cut shoes, eh? Both from Walmart.

Time to get off~ here's a shot of that dining car we were on,

A nice passenger took this family photo. Rue, anything look familiar? I have a great "off" white, lol... I bought it at Liz Claiborne for $10 when they were going out of business in February. I really need something smaller, I carry everything but the kitchen sink in here and it kills me!

Thank you for riding along with us. We had fun! Nova was so good on the entire Branson trip so I bought him a battery powerd James engine for the ride home. Toot-toot!