I need a clone

As y’all know I fool around a little with sewing. But this ladylike goblin wants to bring up her game. So I though that an assistant would be great for my projects.

I’m really proud of her. Her name is Coraline. She’s great at her job. Employee of the month.

To start I needed to make a copy of my ✨body✨. So I suggested my partner as a fun couple’s activity to wrap me up in cellophane and duct-tape.

Then, as the good 3d artists that we are, we added some guidelines, or a wireframe. (This is also the moment where you notice how asymmetrical your body is). (But bruh, look at that toned back omg).

After that I cut it all up. Unwrapped it, as we say in the games industry. So I could copy it flat on some fabric and make a mockup. Always make a mockup, in case the pattern transfer looses itself somewhere and you have to adjust some bits.

Miraculously, once I sewed everything together, it was a perfect first fit!

I’ve been taking inspiration from bootstrapfashion.com, which is really cool and I highly recommend if you want a much more precise model than what I’m doing. But ya girl likes to reverse engineer stuff.
At one point I believe there’s like an internal structure to hold the pole that would keep up the dressform. I have no idea how to do that, other than the power of deduction and freehanding everything. But it’s ok I’m an artist. I can imagine ~ shapes.

Seasons have passed and I’ve become wiser… which means life got in the way, I had to put this on pause until I had an upcoming event for which I wanted to make a costume. I needed Coraline soon.
I still needed a stand for her, and though I could’ve gone the easy route and just buy one, I didn’t. Instead I’m broke, crafty and have a constant voice in my head saying that I can do things ecologically. Additionally we had a bunch of wood lying around the apartment.
I hand cut and carved myself a stand on which I could stick a pole in it. I didn’t have any electric tools at home except for a screwdriver, and let me tell you… it was a long, difficult— meditative task.

I’m updating my birthday wishlist. Girlies want power tools ✨

In the meantime I’m multitasking, I’m going fuckin nuts, I’m a train with no breaks, I started stuffing the dress form.
As I mentioned before, I have a voice in my head that constantly tells me that there is always some waste reducing solution to everything. So I’ve been collecting a substantial amount of scrap fabric. That tasty “cabbage” or “coleslaw”, as I hear they call it. (They I mean Bernadette Banner, one of holy craft goddesses of the interwebs). I took everything: fabric pieces, ripped up clothes, plastic bags, even every tiny piece of thread the would be cut off when finishing a sewing project, I kept it all. I even thought that it was too much, that I could never have enough projects for all that cabbage, that I was going mad…. But alas… my instincts end up always being right.

There she is — my sister in arms: Coraline.

She is a little bit wonky, definitely not symmetrical, far from being steady and ready, but hey, so am I and I love her for that.

Funny story about the name Coraline. I once asked my parents what other names were the runner ups for my birth certificate and therefore could’ve shaped my whole identity in a drasticly different way. They listed them and discussed the reasons why they didn’t chose those in the end (“would sound like a meanie, doesn’t sound nice in other languages, found out a pornstar was called like that, etc.”).
Then my mom said “I really liked the name Coraline, but I don’t remember why we didn’t choose it”.
And my dad answered “Oh… I also really liked Coraline, but thought you didn’t!”
”Oh!” said my mother
”Ooh!” said my father
”…I COULD’VE BEEN CORALINE ALL THIS TIME??” said I.

Therefore, the mannequin Coraline will inherit thy name, and become a version of me… that could’ve been.

As I’m writing this entry there’s still a bit to do for her (I just wanted to publish something more to this blog other than my “hello post”) and could’ve taken some better structural decisions if I weren’t in a hurry, but honestly she’s working perfectly fine as she is and I can already start draping and planning costumes with her. Also this is my first time ever trying this out and I’m already impress of how it is. My army of dress forms will be bigger— and stronger.