As a reminder, I am using the original 30 unit model that I've shown many pictures of as my base design. I am used scrapbook paper I got in various black and white patterns. I decided to go with this after John suggested I add color back into my thought process and scrapbook paper is thin enough that I wouldn't completely damage my hands in the process of folding everything.
I am also building this on a dress form I have on loan from a vintage shop (Three Graces Vintage, Stafford Springs, CT) from back home. It was very slender when I first got her, but with a lot of adjustment, Betty the dress form became Bertha.
Humble Beginnings: I had to use blue painters tape to keep the flattened units in place until I could wrap around the dress and it would be able to hold it in place themselves. I figured I should start in an area that had to have some hint of a form after the paper was removed from the dress form. Since I wanted the dress to give a general shape of a woman's body, I decided to start building off of Bertha's breast. I cut 60 sheets of 6" squares in fourths for the bodice.
From here I had to reflect the same pattern on the opposite side.
And wrap it around to the back. (Bertha has bit of an asymmetrical butt. She's odd. Things shift.)
From here, I had to go under the shoulder and connect the back to the front before I could continue down to Bertha's stomach.
From there, it was just about finishing the bodice. About half way down, I ran into a problem where I couldn't use pentagons or hexagons to link the back and front together as they would have overlapped or created too much extra space and cause the freestanding dress to lose all sense of Bertha's form. I decided to fix this by making heptagons and octagons. It also provides the (hypothetical) wearer with more flexibility.
And now onto the skirt. However, I had to make a decision on whether I wanted to go with 6 unit models to build off of that were the same size as the bodice units were or to go with 6 unit models that were created out of full sheets (in this case, 6" squares) of the scrapbook paper. I decided that I liked the larger models better as they really helped fill out the shape of the skirt and would be easier and quicker to build off. The skirt took 228 sheets of paper.
And here's how the dress looked with the 6 unit models all the way around the start of the hips.
From here, I had another decision to make: continue building the dress with the 6 unit models or incorporate the 12s. I chose the latter. Half way done with the skirt.
And here is the completed dress!
Also, the side view:
Onto the next step!
looks good. well done.
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