Halloween planning - part 2

Part 2, as promised. In the accompanying photos, you can see the progress so far with the mutilation of the doll and beach ball. I stripped the doll, pulled its plastic hands and feet and its wig off, removed the stuffing and cut a hole in the base of the head so that the salt could get in through the body. I then sewed both arms and one leg shut, filled the whole thing through the open leg then stitched it closed. I weighed it and it came in at 3kg, which is in the ballpark for a newborn.

I then stitched the arms together and the legs together to hold it towards the foetal position. Looking at it, I know that I'm going to have to take some fill out and shrink the bottom, as it's disproportionate and the overall length is be a bit too long, but I left it as is for now.

After cutting the stem off the beach ball, I stuffed the doll into it and folded it shut so that I could do a trial fit.The lack of fill around the doll made it quite lumpy, so I added one of the lightweight padding pieces in front of it to smooth it out. The plastic slid around while the other padding stayed put, making the results a bit hard to judge and convincing me that the fabric cover will not only be necessary, but will need to be tightly fitted or perhaps taped or glued to the plastic. 

I am aware that part of a the baby is inside the mother's normal body profile, and hence the doll may have to be trimmed, such as cutting the face off so that the remainder of the head will sit further in against the body, but from reading about pregnancy simulators, they deliberately incorporate a piece that is designed to push into the wearer, squashing the bladder in a manner comparable to a baby during pregnancy. I'm just not sure whether I'll be able to find a suitable body shaper that will apply enough pressure there without squashing the whole thing into me too hard.

The trial fit has convinced me that the concept can work, but the spare tyre of fat that I'm carrying around my waist is proving to be the biggest obstacle. At this stage, I'm putting the pregnancy idea aside for a while and concentrating on trying to get at least a little weight off. I'm still going to look for a suitable costume, and if I succeed in getting the weight off, I'll finish the pregnant belly and use if for Halloween. If not, I'll do something else this year and plan on re-visiting this next year.

While typing this, I realised that I made a silly mistake. When I did the trial fit, I first put on the hip and bum padding and a body shaper to keep that in place, then the pregnant bulge and another couple of shapers over that. The first shaper was probably reducing the amount that the doll pushed into my belly, offsetting the effect of the other shapers. I'll have to try it again without that shaper under the pregnant bulge!