I was feeling in a sewing mood, so I pulled out my mother’s old dress form and set it up.

One of the difficulties with the home sewing industry is that the Powers That Be decided that everything would be designed for a B cup. I guess it’s easier to design clothes for the moderately flat-chested. Unfortunately, that leaves those of us more bodacious in the ta-ta department SOL, because altering a pattern for a fuller bustline is one of the more difficult and fiddly operations. Once again, I find myself asking: if American women are getting so darn fat, why can’t I find any clothes that fit?

The dress form is, needless to say, designed for a B cup. To alter it, I sized the ribcage to fit, then dug into the back of my drawer and found a bra that fits but I never wear because it’s not very comfortable for more than a few hours. I stuffed the cups with torn-up paper towels. Yes, I know polyfil is more traditional, but I didn’t have any lying around the house.

I swear, I giggled for an hour. Someday when I’m feeling ambitious, I’ll make the dress form pinnable and squishable by covering it in quilt batting.

Later on in the afternoon, I cut the blue rayon I picked up in Dallas for a skirt. It was about two yards short for a full circle skirt, alas, so I did my usual draw-triangles-and-let-the-geometry-work-itself-out four-gore skirt. It’s all done except for fastenings and hemming. I’m letting it hang for a few days before I pin up the hem.

 A lot of people want to know what my garb looks like: this is a fairly representative sample.