A Tailor's Ham

A tailor's ham or dressmaker's ham is a tightly stuffed pillow used as a curved mold when ironing/pressing curved areas of clothing, such as darts, sleeves, cuffs, collars, or waistlines. Pressing on a curved form allows a garment better to fit body contours. To accommodate tapering or garments of different sizes, it has roughly the shape of a ham.

A Tailor's Ham
It has little to do with "Chanel Inspired" accessories but if you have some tweed fabric, it is a great option to make a tailor's ham for yourself or for somebody else. A tailor's ham or dressmaker's ham is a tightly stuffed pillow used as a curved mold when ironing/pressing curved areas of clothing, such as darts, sleeves, cuffs, collars, or waistlines. Pressing on a curved form allows a garment better to fit body contours. To accommodate tapering or garments of different sizes, it has roughly the shape of a ham.

Handsewing
It is also a perfect helping tool when you are hand sewing.  Especially when you are hand sewing the quilting process or the seam together (the lining on the fabric) as we learned to do when we are creating the Chanel Inspired jacket. A small roll as model for the tailor's ham will be perfect to use when you are hand sewing the seams of the sleeves.

Tailor's ham are perfectly made from pieces of fabric left over, to fill the inside and tweed or heavy cotton on the outside.
This is why we are spending a whole page on creating a tailor's ham.  We are not making a tutorial here, but we will give some perfect links or maybe in future make a free Pdf pattern.

It is actually very weird the Sewing Patterns companies do not have tailor's ham's patterns. Maybe they think it is too easy to make one, or there al already too many patterns out there.  But it is not a luxury. every seamstress should have a least a few tailor's ham's because once you start to work with them, you can not live ( or sew) without them....

The tailor's ham's are made of tweed and heavy cotton. The fillings  of the hams consists of remnants of fabrics.  The fabrics are cut in very small pieces. The remains are crammed and pushed hard. See tutorials.
You can also fill the ham's with straw but we prefer the remains of fabrics.

Ham's come in all sizes.  Ideal is when you are able to make a few ham's of different sizes. Also, as on picture 2: a small roll ham is perfect for using when you are hand sewing the seams of the sleeves.  multi

The tailor's ham's can be used in different ways for both ironing and hand sewing. Handy tools that you can easily make yourself.

Tutorials: