#3: Lines of demarcation
I’m getting ready to drape some designs!
The first step is to mark the form with twill tape. Twill tape is a thin black cotton ribbon that you pin to the dress form to delineate grain lines, seam lines, and style lines. This is the one I bought:
I originally followed the Beatrice Forms video, where they have an industry expert guide you through, in detail, how to mark style lines on your custom dress form, and I learned a lot from it! (watch it here) I originally added all the lines suggested in the video, shown below in green.
(Note, she didn’t add the under bust line that’s shown in this photo).
Though, in the end, I removed a few of the tapes because, as I thought about it more, some didn’t feel useful to me and it looked a too busy for my preference. I only intend on making my own patterns from here on out. The person leading the tutorial was interested in draping pre-made patterns on her form to better fit them to her body, so some of the lines she marked were industry standard placements for high hip, low hip. From my understanding, marking these lines help indicate where a pattern line should sit on her form.
Instead, I’ve decided to let the shape of my body determine where I put a style lines, like a waistband, for example. I also decided that I only want to mark my dress form with the lines I most commonly need each time I drape. For this, I chose bust, waist, hip, center front, center back, armsyce, cross shoulder, and neckline. I’ll add any other lines, (like princess seams) as needed for each individual project.
Here’s what it looks like:
As side note, it’s a LOT harder than it looks to mark a straight, parallel, or perpendicular line on a custom dress form. The form is not symmetrical so it requires a lot of checking and adjusting. But once they’re pinned, it can be reused over and over again. I also learned that my hip line (or widest part of my hips) is much lower than where it would traditionally be placed on a standard-sized dress form.
Anyway, that’s it for this week! Next week, I’ll go over my project plans and start draping.
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