A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post called How to Alter a Dress Form. I have had my dress form, Betty, for a few years and she was too big. As I couldn’t use she was clutter that I just don’t have the room for, so I made the decision to get her to the right side or get rid of her.
A couple of hours and 1 sharp knife later and she’s a much better fit.
What I didn’t mention however was Betty’s other problem.
Not only was she the wrong size, she kept falling over!
She had been supplied with detachable legs that bolted on but they wouldn’t stay put.
Every time somebody walked past her, she fell over.
Every time one of my boys hit her with a toy car, she fell over.
A couple of times all I did was cast a glance in Betty’s general direction and she fell over!
This was one of the reasons why I was actually favouring throwing her out. Getting her to the right size was fine, but the fact that she was too big in the top half was only part of the problem.
So once I had managed to get Betty to more or less the right size, I set about fixing the legs.
First of all I tried tightening up the bolts. Unfortunately one of them had fallen off and had possibly disappeared up the hoover. Ferreting around under the furniture yielded no results, although I did discover a quantity of Lego.
Next I tried a combination of wood glue and tightening up the bolts that had not been eaten by the hoover. That didn’t work either. The legs still moved about.
So it was time to get creative!
I needed a stand that could be attached to the bottom of stand where the legs went, that would be the right size and would not fall over.
After chewing the idea over for 10 minutes or so, I hit on the perfect solution.
A Christmas tree stand!
A Christmas tree stand is adjustable (you can’t tell exactly how thick the trunk’s going to be), would attach to the base of the stand (the bottom of Betty’s stand is similar to the trunk of a small Christmas tree) and stable (nobody wants their Christmas tree to squish their toddler or mangle their pet).
We have a fake tree so I needed to buy a stand.
If you decide to do this yourself, the Christmas Tree stand I bought was this one from Amazon
I attached it to Betty and it worked!
You might find it necessary to sand the bits of the dress form’s stand where the metal bits of the Christmas tree base will go to make then flatter.
If it doesn’t feel stable enough, you could fill the cavity of the Christmas tree stand with bean bags or you could make little bags and fill them with rice to weight it down.
I’m so happy I can use my dress form again. It’s the right size and it doesn’t fall over!
PS If you want to sew clothes without using a pattern, you might like my ebook!
My Christmas tree keeps falling over. Mainly because since I put it in a corner I only put branches and ornaments on one side, putting all the weight on that side. So I don’t have much confidence in Christmas tree stands.
It’s not a perfect solution (I also have a wobbly Christmas tree!), but it’s a solution, and definitely better than the wobbly legs it came with!
Hi! I’m making my own dressform from bootstrap fashion, and I’ll use your Christmas tree stand idea; but do you know what I can use for a pole? Does it matter what I use?
You could try a broom handle but something thicker might be better. Or perhaps several bamboo canes held together with elastic bands. It probably doesn’t matter very much, but if you’re going to use a Christmas tree stand something most like the trunk of a Christmas tree will probably be best. Otherwise maybe a camera tripod.
Hi, just to say thank you. I broke my dress form tripod stand and your brilhant idea just save me xx
Yay Tania! I’m so glad it’s helped, that’s why I write the stuff in the first place 🙂
Great idea! I could do with one of these 🙂
Thanks for sharing at Creative Mondays
It’s very useful!
Necessity is the mother of invention! What a great idea.
The stand’s so much better than the legs it came with!
What a good idea, when I first seen the picture I thought it was a parasol stand.
It’s surprising how that lego gets everywhere 🙂
There is not a single room in our house where there is not lego!
What a great idea! I don’t own a dress form, but I can totally understand that having it fall can be a nuisance, as well as a risk of damaging whatever you’re working on! Thank you for sharing at the Really Crafty Link Party this week! Pinned!
It was really annoying! And a bit dangerous.
What a brilliant idea! No more tipsy Betty; however, and just in case, I’d put a lock on the liquor cabinet 🙂
The falling over water’s a killer 😉