An Interesting Form of Therapy

With a title like that, how shall I begin? Well, let me just throw myself out on the screen:

Yep, that’s ME! Today I sucked up my pride and pulled on a turtleneck and had my husband duct tape me from neck to hips to create a new dress form. The therapy came in several forms:

– Patience therapy – I cannot rush this, I must stand still, and I cannot micromanage this process.

– Trust therapy – I must trust Josh to do a good job taping and cutting it off without slicing me in half too!

– Self love and acceptance therapy – This is my body right now. Deal with it, accept it, love it Leah!

You might be looking at my dress form thinking “what’s the big deal?” but the fact is we all can feel sensitive about our weight. No matter if you are generally big or small, it’s not easy seeing the real deal in all it’s glory.

But it is what it is. That is me and for once, I’m not going to spiral into a whirl of defeated gloom about my pooch or wide shoulders, I’m just going to accept this form, my form, for what it is. It’s me!

Now I probably wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble a month ago. I was perfectly happy with my adjusted Lucy the way she was. I had taken my measurements and adjusted her to where I thought we were a pretty close match.

Yeah right…

When you sew a garment to fit your dressmaker dummy, chances are it’s going to fit your dummy really well. Your body? Not so much.

I have really enjoyed sewing shirts lately and like having something custom to wear, particularly in videos. The thing is these shirts could fit much BETTER. They could feel more comfortable to wear. They could look better on me, no matter what my body looks like underneath.

It just so happened that I recently signed up for the Craftsy class Curvy Crochet because I wanted to learn tips about increasing and decreasing in crochet. Included in the class is a hilarious step-by-step breakdown of how to make a duct tape dress form.

I decided I must have one, but I don’t really have a friend close enough to…well…basically feel me up for an afternoon! lol. I showed the lesson to Josh and between fits of laughter (the instructor, Marly Bird, really has a great sense of humor), he agreed to tape me up.

I’m really, really happy to have this finished duct tape form because it’s actually true to me, and for once I could easily see why fitting was such an issue. I have wide shoulders, a sway back, and long torso, and all of these things present unique fitting challenges.

Getting over the fact that my body is imperfect is actually easy when I consider how much easier it will be to fit and make garments that look great.

So now I’m off to put the finishing touches on this new Lucy, and maybe cut out a new shirt while I’m at it. Cross your fingers that this one fits perfectly!

Let’s go quilt,

Leah