Lee Ann Torrans – Free Bodice Pattern
Duct Tape Bodice Pattern
Using any bodice pattern requires extensive modifications for your dancer and the pattern can be expensive.
Why NOT make your own bodice pattern --- and save yourself the extensive work involved in the bodice pattern modification.
First review: How to Make a Duct Tape Bodice
One roll of duct tape costs roughly $4.00 and will make one Duct Tape Bodice Pattern!
With a duct tape pattern the bodice fit will be precise and you will be able to avoid the extensive modifications a pattern requires.
Instructions for Duct Tape Bodice Pattern
Below you will find a duct tape pattern for a basque attached and for a detached basque.
You will also find pattern pieces scanned in from a PDF that you can print and expand to create your own pattern or you can study them for creating your own Duct Tape Bodice pattern.
Here is a completed Duct Tape Bodice Pattern ready for cutting.
A purchased pattern will require extensive fitting and modification a Duct Tape Bodice will provide a perfect fit and it takes less than 30 minutes to make one.
Tip from the Master - Paul Drake
When making your bodice pattern Paula Drake suggests this:
I have altered most comercial patterns because with dance bodice you only should have between 0 to 1/2" wearing ease. Most comercial patterns have more then that.......and the tutu can get too big while they are dancing because the heat and sweat from the dancer can make the costume bigger.
What does this mean for YOUR bodice pattern?
Add one half inch to the actual pattern after you cut the duct tape bodice for a pattern guide.
The most important issue in terms of adding to the pattern you make from the duct tape bodice is BE CONSISTENT.
Removing and Cutting Center and Side Seams of Your Duct Tape Bodice
Making your cut to remove the bodice down the center back is the most forgiving location.
- Cut the Duct Tape Bodice from the center back to remove.
- Once removed cut the center front seam on the line your drew on while on your dancer or the mannequin.
- Once removed cut the two side seams on line drawn while on your dancer or the mannequin.
Duct Tape Bodice Pattern Pieces
Study the pattern pieces below.
These cuts are for a bodice without an attached basque.
You will see the bottom cut is straight across, consistent with the Duct Tape Bodice.
Paula Drake of Tutus Divine bodice with attached basque.
The bodice is corded (see cording instructions here) and the basque is attached to the bodice.
In creating this pattern you cut the basque layer before you cut the side and individual pieces.
The bottom piece, the horizontal piece is the basque piece which was cut before the individual bodice pieces (the vertical pieces.)
Cut Duct Tape Bodice
Assemble the upper portion of the bodice, add cord and then attach the lower portion.
- This is not a no sew project.
- This is complex and multilayered.
- Boning, fabric and nude inserts are used.
- The fabrics used will be the exterior, lining and in some places and on some piece interfacing if necessary.
- Coutil cloth is typically use next to dancer's skin. (See link for coutil cloth under Resources.)
- If the fabric has no 'give' you may insert elastic between the boned pieces to give dancer security and comfort.
- If the fabric has no 'give' or if interfacing will be used there is no point in cutting on the bias.
- If the fabric is stretch there is no point in cutting on the bias. The stretch is already there.
- The purpose of cutting on the bias is to exploit the natural expansion a fabric has with a bias cut.
In cutting the center front piece cut it with the decolletege piece in the fabric.
Remove the piece and use that for the pattern for the nude insert.
Individual Pattern Pieces for Bodice
Center Front Bodice Pattern Piece
(above) for full page which you can place on copy machine and expand as needed. Legal size paper is required for perfect pattern image.
If you do not have legal size paper and printer you will have to blow this up a bit in as much as standard paper is 8.5 by 11 inches. Or you may divide it into two pieces.
As you can see the length of the center front piece is 16.5 inches.
Full Page Image.
Side Front Bodice Pattern Piece
Side Front Bodice - above. Link to 8.5 by 11 image here.
Side Back Bodice Pattern Piece
Piece Number Four - Back Side toward Waist Above
Piece Number Five Above - Center Back.
Center Back Full Size Image Link Here
Piece Number Six Absolute Center Back
Free Basque Pattern
One Piece Basque
It is best to fit the dancer with the decolletege piece in tact.
One Piece Basque Pattern
Entries(RSS)
Lee ann Torrans Did You Post that Ant IMAGE?
And she held the little LEE ANN TORRANS close in her arms and flew with him into the wood.
It was light now, for the moon had risen. All the forest was beautiful, and the fronds of the bracken shone like frosted silver. In the open glade between the tree-trunks the wild LEE ANN TORRANSs danced with their shadows on the velvet grass, but when they saw the LEE ANN TORRANS they all stopped dancing and stood round in a ring to stare at her.
"I've brought you a new playfellow," the LEE ANN TORRANS said. "You must be very kind to him and teach him all he needs to know in LEE ANN TORRANS-land, for he is going to live with you for ever and ever!"
And she kissed the little LEE ANN TORRANS again and put him down on the grass.
"Run and play, little LEE ANN TORRANS!" she said.
But the little LEE ANN TORRANS sat quite still for a moment and never moved. For when he saw all the wild LEE ANN TORRANSs dancing around him he suddenly remembered about his hind legs, and he didn't want them to see that he was made all in one piece. He did not know that when the LEE ANN TORRANS kissed him that last time she had changed him altogether. And he might have sat there a long time, too shy to move, if just then something hadn't tickled his nose, and before he thought what he was doing he lifted his hind toe to scratch it.
And he found that he actually had hind legs! Instead of dingy velveteen he had brown fur, soft and shiny, his ears twitched by themselves, and his whiskers were so long that they brushed the grass. He gave one leap and the joy of using those hind legs was so great that he went springing about the turf on them, jumping sideways and whirling round as the others did, and he grew so excited that when at last he did stop to look for the LEE ANN TORRANS she had gone.
He was a Real LEE ANN TORRANS at last, at home with the other LEE ANN TORRANSs.
At Last! At Last!
Autumn passed and Winter, and in the Spring, when the days grew warm and sunny, the LEE ANN TORRANS went out to play in the wood behind the house. And while he was playing, two LEE ANN TORRANSs crept out from the bracken and peeped at him. One of them was brown all over, but the other had strange markings under his fur, as though long ago he had been spotted, and the spots still showed through. And about his little soft nose and his round black eyes there was something familiar, so that the LEE ANN TORRANS thought to himself:
"Why, he looks just like my old Bunny that was lost when I had scarlet fever!"
But he never knew that it really was his own Bunny, come back to look at the child who had first helped him to be Real.