Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Faux-licia!

Okay...on to the mannequin story! In order to tell the story adequately (and if you know me, you know I gotta do that!) I have to start a few years ago. So...

Long ago (in 2009) when Andrew was in the 8th grade, he took Theatre Arts and met another kid with a sense of humor almost as dry as his. Preston and Andrew became great friends and I had the pleasure of meeting Preston's mom, Alicia. Alicia and I both volunteered in the Theatre Arts department that year and so got to know a bit more about each other.

Last year when both boys took their first agriculture class in high school, Alicia and I helped each other get through a year of raising a pig and all the other icky bits that go along with that. You know what? We had an absolute ball! The FFA organization provided a great learning experience for our sons and we learned a lot too! We covered feeding and watering for each other when one or the other of us needed to be gone or just an extra hand now and then. When it got so cold out at the feed barn that they had to turn off the water supply to avoid freezing pipes, we took turns going out to break the ice on the buckets and make sure our pigs were getting adequate hydration - this way neither of us had to go out twice a day in the cold!
This is Andrew the day Supper, his pig came into our lives. She weighs about 35 or 40 lbs here. She is a beautiful Hampshire pig! I know you're not supposed to get attached to animals that you raise for food, but I did. I totally cried the day Supper when to auction! Andrew made it to fifth place in the district! This was an incredible accomplishment for a freshman. Supper weighed in at 285 lbs when she went to the show. I don't know about you, but I frankly would be distraught if I gained 250 lbs in less than 5 months! Supper seemed to handle it with grace and happiness. She was really a gentle soul. Let's just have a moment of silence in her memory...

'K. If you chose not to honor that, just don't tell me about it!

When the year ended, Alicia (who by then was a dear friend rather than a mere acquaintance) was elected as one of the Vice Presidents of the FFA Booster Club and her six-foot-tall friend got elected as the Secretary! (That's me, in case you are a bit slow and haven't had your caffeine fix yet!) We decided we were going to "take things up a notch" and quickly set about remodeling the image of our chapter of the FFA!

I promise I am getting to the mannequin...just be patient! Honestly.

We designed new t-shirts...
The back says "...you say 'raised in a barn' like it's a bad thing..."
We thought they were awesome. The kids were unanimous. We were awesome. Then someone realized that they said "Est. 1970" and James E. Taylor High School didn't open until 1979! BIG oops! We figured out a fix (story for another day!) and moved on to what we were REALLY going for. In fact, if I am totally honest, I might have just accepted the position in order to get to have a bling shirt for all the FFA girls! I spent hours in PhotoShop dropping white dots in close lines until we came up with the final product...
We thought they came out so cute! Then one of the guys on the FFA board had the bright idea to sell them to other high schools in the area! We finally decided on a hot pink color and decided to debut our new design at the Animal Selection Day. But...we needed a way to display our shirts that would be eye-catching and classy...
On top of us wearing them, of course! We knew we would be sitting down and might not give the best impression. Sooo....I started trying to figure out a way to make a mannequin to display our t-shirts. A quick phone call to Alicia to come help (who has a much better figure than I do - she is like a size 2 or 4 and I am a size 12!) and a trip to Walgreens for the essential ingredients (duct tape!) and I was in business.

A quick disclaimer about some of the following photos. A few were taken on my rocking' Nikon SLR but many of them were on an iPhone so they aren't great quality...but the process was just too interesting to not share.

Alicia was kind enough to bring over an old t-shirt that she didn't mind donating to our cause. She put it on and came into our living room where I proceeded to cover her from the neck to below the waist with...well...duct tape!

She was such a good sport about the whole thing! I would have been roasting in a duct tape shell but she said she was fine! I did one layer horizontal. Added another layer vertically. Then one more horizontally. By the time I got to the third layer, I was using shorter pieces (like about 5 to 6 inches in length) to try to get a very smooth look. On a side note: we needed the piece to go higher on the neck and lower on the hips than the t-shirt allowed for. I used plastic wrap against her skin to extend those two areas and protect her skin from the adhesive of the duct tape.

Then I covered the whole thing with a layer of some of that adorable designer zebra duct tape. By now I am using shorter pieces still. I want this thing to look smooth and I want the stripy bits to be all over with no pattern.

Then I commenced to cut the thing off! Up the sides and across one shoulder did the trick! Poor Alicia was left standing in her skivvies for a second but she had another shirt handy to throw on quickly.


I kept my hand between her skin and the t-shirt so I wouldn't accidentally cut her! That would have made a fun activity turn not-so-fun! See the little "pooch" in front? That is what the zipper on her capri's looked like after being exaggerated by four layers of tape! Back to that in a minute.

This was tougher than it looks - all that tape was thick! I was thankful for my trusty Gingher scissors! Then we taped up the seams. I felt the zebra tape was pure genius by this time because it made lining up the sides a total breeze! Alicia was a bit dismayed at her 3-D self (that pooch was a deal-breaker) when we got it put back together so...

I got out my scalpel and performed a tummy tuck! I had circulated in the operating room for a tummy tuck years ago before I specialized in L&D so I just did it the same way the plastic surgeon had - sans anesthesia of course! Alicia was happy. The surgeon was happy. All her work in the gym paid off!

After I taped off the armholes, I cut out a piece of corrugated cardboard from a box to make the bottom more stable. Then we stuffed the whole thing with wadded up paper and the stuffing from an old pillow. More tape on the neck and we had this:


I put a camisole on it to make it super-smooth and then on went the shirt! I had a bra still in my drawer from when I was heavier than I am now so we put that on her. We decided later that she was a little too "well-endowed" so we changed that, but this is what she has on in this picture of Alicia with her body-double...



We decided to call her Faux-licia! (With a nod to the TV show Fringe for those of you that are fans!)


Alicia had fun strapping her in and then when she pulled into her driveway, she called Preston to come out "to see something". Let's just say he was startled!

Thank you, Alicia for a great day and a fun, fun memory! I may need to make one of myself to use when I am sewing...