Monday, March 16, 2009

The Amazing Adventures of The Intrepid Seamstress

Once upon a time there was a girl who loved to sew. She sewed Barbie clothes from scraps of fabric and colthes for her tribe of Cabbage Patch dolls from remnants. When she grew up she longed to sew clothing for herself but alas and alack, she was unable to find someone to help her fit her garments to her body. She consulted the magic portal known as Google and found that there were many ways indeed to create a doppleganger that would enable her to create beauty and wonder from the bolts and bolts of fabric that were beginning to pile up.


The first quest was to create the "Duct Tape Double". It was, sadly, not that great. It did indeed look like the intrepid girl, but sadly the adhesive that caused the duct tape to adhere to her underthings and create the replica of her form also made it impossible to pin into and thereby tailor anything. So Hildegarde the Duct Tape Double was relegated to the bin.


Later that year, the girl had a birthday. While sojourning in the land of Google, she found yet another amazing invention known as the Uniquely You Dressform. Which in theory was ... well ... unique. It's squishable foam made it an ideal candidate to replicate the girl's shape and form. Unfortunately, the instructions that came with the dressform were written in some arcane language that the girl was unable to understand.


Many years passed and the girl became a woman and bore children. Which, as could be expected, made many changes to her body. It's shape was barely discernable as that of the girl's. "But that's not a problem!" cried the girl. "I can just alter the cover of yon dressform and in two shakes of a tailor's chalk the form will be as mine own!"


But the dressform gods are capricious and hid the intructions for altering the dressform to fit. And so, the girl once again ventured into the land of Google and acquired a second copy of the instructions. Fearing that some tragedy would befall the slip of paper on which they were inscribed, she put them into a "safe place". Which as everyone knows is really a black hole from whence they will never return until after a period of 20 years or the original item has long since been sold or given to the local charity shop.


After a period of 4 years, the girl rediscovers the dressform - known only as Brunhilde - and decides that indeed to attempt once again to create a doppleganger is a quest most worthy. And so she ventured again into the land of Google to learn the alchemy that would create the perfect double of her body in latex foam rubber.


Again, as before, the dressform gods ridicule her attempts at creating a cover for Brunhilde and in her desperation, the girl consults every oracle she can find to learn the secret to taming the latex foam rubber shrew.


Will she tame the latex foam rubber beast? Can she create her perfect double? Or will she die the death of one thousand and one straight pins?


Tune in next time for the continuing adventures of "The Intrepid Seamstress"!

1 comment:

Cynthia said...

Oh, good luck! I need to make a new double. Mine is made using these instructions: http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/3633/paper-tape-dress-form
But another baby means that it won't really be usable for another 20# which will probably be another 9 months away!