I bought a dress foam from Nancy's Notions years ago - I don't have any of the info on it right now.

I would wait until Joanns or Hancocks has their sales with their coupons and get it that way. That way you can actually see what yuo are getting. You can even get patterns on sale through their sign up program. I save a lot on senior days, too. If you are old enough.

I buy my patterns at Joann's. They don't have a sign out at my store, but they are always like half price.

My Daughter took a pattern making class and they made torso forms of their own bodies. I put a silk cammie on it. Lol!

A friend of mine made her own, she thinks its great since it is exactly to her size, great for kids too. check out this site for instructions.
http://www.wikihow.com/Create-Your-Own-Dress-Form

Paper patterns are often on sale at different times of the year .I go through the pattern books & keep a list of the ones I like so when they are cheap I can get them if they still appeal to me. With kids patterns get the multi size ones ,these can be used for years .

Try going to thrift stores, they always have a crafters section and I've seen patterns for sale at 10 cents! I once got 12 crochet magazines at 25 cents each!!

I don't use commercial paper patterns very often and never use a dress form. I have many strategies for making patterns, including taking worn out garments apart or simply drawing round favourite item which works if you understand the allowance of different amounts of ease for different fabrics.
I suse to cut patterns properly using a "toile" but when I lost some weight, I didn't bother creating a new one.

I used this book to create my toile many years ago. I didn't realise it was still available!

Have you heard of Burda sewing magazine? I have found it in large book stores. Each magazine has at least 15 patterns for dresses, skirts, blouses and kids clothes. They are not very hard to follow and each patterns comes in several sizes, I've done many dresses etc., from the magazine. We do not find patterns in Saudi Arabia but this magazine sells well!!

Have always wanted a dress form but could not afford one when the children were young,I buy the patterns, the fabric is expensive and want perfect results.I would buy a good one that you can adjust to fit your shape,some of the cheap ones will not hold the weight of the fabric.

I draw my own patterns, except for most of the (grand)children's clothes - they grow so fast it makes no sense to sew them to their exact measurements.
I 'inherited' an adjustable dress form.

- Dislike - It's adjustable only to a certain extend, so it's never a close fit to somebody's measurements. So I don't use it for exact fitting.

- Likes - It is useful to see if the general shape and some of the details (e.g. a collar) are as you intended them to be, you can audition placement of things like pockets. Pinned the embroidered parts of my daughter's wedding dress in place till I had them all done - kept them wrinkle free till I could start sewing.

But I'm afraid for the last few years mine has been gathering dust in the attic as my sewing room is overcrowded as it is (sewing has been a bit down on my activity list after digitising and embroidering).

I use bits of patterns, unpick loved clothes and create something appears. You can make your own dress form with brown paper and lots of heavy duty tape AND an assistant to wind the tape round yourself and then cut you out. Think it was Sewing World mag a number of years ago that showed yo how to do this. I dont have a dress form and dont need one. Most commercial patterns are on sale at some point of the year and chaarity shops have loads for sale. Buying a couple of 'traditional' styles you can then adapt would be my choice

I bet all this info has helped you make a decision.