mini Christmas dress form and mini Christmas ornaments

Spiff up your sewing room with this Christmas dress form

Today I’m showing you how to give your sewing room some Holiday flair with this mini Christmas dress form project.

Dress form Christmas trees are a thing–who knew?! And while it’s super dramatic to have your dress form covered in fresh greenery, you don’t have to keep your sewing buddy occupied the whole month.

Enter the miniature dress form. Mini dress forms are great tools not just for drafting patterns on a smaller scale, but for dressing up throughout the year.

Here’s how you can sew your own dress form Christmas DIY project with a mini dress form, tinsel, some poinsettias, and a little fabric.

pinterest image: How to make a mini Christmas dress form with a mini Christmas dress form and miniature Christmas decorations
Pin me on Pinterest!

elizabethmadethis.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a way for websites to earn advertising revenues by advertising and linking toSome of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.

Supplies for your Christmas dress form

Minus the mini dress form and maybe the flowers, you probably have everything you need!

  • Miniature dress form: I’ve seen these in craft stores, antique stores, even sold as jewelry holders. This one from Darice is super cute and perfect for decorating.
  • remnant of linen–an old napkin could work here or just about a 10″ square
  • old sweater: a small from the hem is ideal
  • scrap of knit fabric or ribbing
  • tinsel: 1 pack any type
  • artificial poinsettias: about 2 dozen.
  • wire cutters
  • hot glue
  • beads, sequins, other blingy, blinky things!

Make your mini dress form a sweater

First we’re going to make our dress form a sweater. If you want to skip this step, you can get creative instead and just drape fabric over your dress form instead.

A little bodice is all you really need here. You could

But I wanted to give my girl a full on sweater. Maybe I had ugly sweaters on the brain, but mostly when I have leftover bits of good wool sweater, they must be used!

Drape and sew the sweater

Center back seam

First cut a rough rectangle from your sweater. If you can cut it from the hem, you’ll get the bonus of not having to finish the neck because of the ribbing.

With the wrong sides of the fabric together, pin out a center back seam. Shape it to your mini dress form.

Sew the center back seam with a narrow zigzag (0.5mm width, 2.5mm length), backstitching at the top of the neckline.

Trim the seam allowance down to about 1/4″ and press the seam open. You can tack the seam allowance down right at the neckline so that it’s flat.

Sew the shoulder seams

Next, drape the shoulder seams. Pinch the fabric together and use 1 pin to mark where the shoulder is.

Sew the shoulder seams with that same narrow zigzag. Backstitch at the neck edges. Trim down the seam allowances to 1/4″.

With your sweater on your mini dress form, cut away the fabric from the armhole areas.

Make sleeves

Pull the sweater off your dress form. Next, fold a piece of sweater fabric vertically. I used mine from the sleeve so I wouldn’t have to finish the sleeve hems.

Folding the armhole you just cut together, measure the length you need for the sleeve.

Use the length you just measured as the top of your sleeve cap and cut a pair of sleeves a few inches long. Use your eye here to figure out how long seems right for your dress form.

Fold the sleeves right sides together and sew the underarm seams with a 1/4″ seam allowance. Backstitch at the hems.

To finish off the sweater body, set in the sleeves and stitch them to the armholes with a 1/4″ seam allowance.

*p.s. this is the worst of it!

Hemming your little sweater

To finish off the sweater, cut off excess length past the bottom edge of your dress form’s body, leaving about 1/2″ extra.

Pin a hem into place that sits even with the dress form’s bottom. Stitch the hem into place with a narrow zigzag

Read on for how to make the skirt for your Christmas dress form!

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *