Seeking stories: sewing and your body

I thought I had a 34″ bust and a 26″ waist. I’m not entirely sure where I came up with those numbers, but I had them ingrained in my mind and would go to stores and complain about vanity sizing when nothing fit me instead of actually measuring myself. When I’d take in my clothes I wouldn’t measure, I’d just pull them to me, pin them, and stitch them up. I desperately did not want to fall into the category of “hard-to-fit” because that just made me feel high-maintenance.

Then one day I decided to measure myself. I found I had a 32″ bust and a 23″ waist. It’s aggravating to have few things fit me outside of the children’s section, especially since I’m short enough that those measurements aren’t unrealistic or unhealthy, but I can’t complain about vanity sizing as much anymore. I’m basically just dependent on sewing and tailoring to make things fit. It still makes me sad that there aren’t a lot of options for smaller women with curves; most things I find that “fit” are made for banana-shaped bodies. Makes me sometimes consider making a line of petite petite!

What an interesting idea! I’m quite sure that nothing RTW is made for me (5’6″, 36-32-42, flat butt, short waisted, narrow back, excellent/upright posture), and it’s been fun to try to make my own stuff! The level of pattern alteration needed is frankly staggering, but I’m getting there…I like having the skills to work on it!

This an amazing topic – I’m fairly new to the sewing thing and the sewing blog world that’s out there, and it seems to me that this is definitely the elephant-in-the-room on a lot of the blogs I’ve been reading. A lot of sewists that I’ve come across, and I’m no exception, seem to have gotten into sewing due to dissatisfaction with the options in the stores, based at least in part to fit. Some of them talk about these issues, but very few talk about the larger social issues that come to play here as well. I hope you don’t mind if I ramble on for a bit here, bit I’m finding I have quite a bit I need to let out right now.

I know that I’ve had issues, major issues, dealing with my own body. Mainly with accepting my body as it is and loving it as my body. How many times have I caught myself fantasizing about being just 20 pound lighter (cause then EVERYTHING would be suddenly perfect?). It didn’t help that a bunch of my friends were in acting (I went to an arts high school) and dance and had very trim bodies. Nor did it help that I grew up with my grandmother (who is from eastern Europe and has English issues) asking me incredulously “Why you so fat?” every time I saw her. Plus the teen magazines that were airbrushed beyond reality that I consumed before I became savvy about such artificiality. Images of what the perfect girl’s body were, compared to mine? I always felt inadequate and unbeautiful.

I’ve always been healthy and strong, but in the last couple of years, I’ve really been struggling with getting some chronic issues diagnosed and my health has suffered. Not a lot, but enough to be disheartening. Not to mention a stint with (luckily mild) depression coming out of grad school in 2010 when the recession really hit my industry exceptionally hard and I just could not find work. While I’m only starting to accept myself as I am, I have had to deal with needing to lose weight/become fitter for health reasons, though I’m lucky enough that it isn’t a huge amount of weight that I need to lose to see the better health benefits begin. But this means that day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, my body is different. Even though the changes aren’t massive, and I’m choosing a diet-and-exercise regime that means weight loss is very very slow and sustainable, clothes are incredibly frustrating and fit is a huge issue. I have very supportive friends, family, and a wonderful loving boyfriend who always takes time to tell me how much he loves me, but support doesn’t always help when the frustration reaches its peaks and I’m stuck in my head berating my body for mot being what I want it to be.

So I sew my own clothes.

I can’t say I’m particularly good at it yet, but I make wearable items that I’m proud to have made (even if I always point out the flaws to myself and others, it’s with an underlying pride and disbelief that I did take some thread and fabric and came up with a recognizable shirt/skirt/jacket). And while I’m not yet up to the myriad challenges of fitting my body perfectly, I’m finding the clothes I’ve made don’t frustrate me with fit issues even when they’re present, because “I MADE this skirt! I love the fabric, and this lining is divine! Even if I need to properly finish that last hem. . . I just HAVE to wear it right now!”. I can find a great pattern, or a great fabric that I really want to work with and combine them into clothing I love to wear, because it makes me feel beautiful, and comfortable in my own skin. Also, finding all these independent designers that are making patterns for clothes I not only want to wear, but want to make, has been so wonderful! I’ve become passionate about clothing again. And while a lot of people might find that shallow, I think it’s been really crucial to helping be become more confident and more able to engage socially with those around me.

Sewing my own clothes has given me an outlet, I think, to discard my frustrations with my own body, that I’m not the “standard female body-type”. Because I’m not alone, and that “standard female body type” doesn’t exist! I brainwashed myself through my youth to hate my body for not being “perfect” and it’s so cathartic to let myself shed that anger and self-recrimination and actually find love for my own body, love for myself in my own skin! And I have, in part, independent pattern designers to thank for that, because they’re making it possible for me to make beautiful clothes that fit me, that I’m passionate about. And that lets me be passionate about living the life I have to the fullest.

For me, sewing has allowed me to focus completely on fit. Before, if I saw something in the store, I’d buy it and hope it looked good. With sewing, if I’m going to spend this much time making it, it’s going to fit perfectly and be a flattering style on my short body – long legs frame.

I am a life-long sewer. As an imperious five-year-old I supervised my mother in the making of first day of kindergarten dress (no–the rickrack goes here). Much to her relief, within a few years I learned to drive the temperamental two-ton Singer handed down from my grandmother, and I was free to pursue my sartorial visions on my own.

I am also a curvy girl, and was never more so than in the months after my first child was born. For that first year I lived in leggings and tunics, not happy with my postpartum body, but figuring a wardrobe heavy on elastic was a small price to pay for this great new love. Until, that is, it was time to go to a summer wedding in my hometown. I needed something lovely and, more importantly, I needed to feel lovely. Nothing–but nothing–fit, unless it was a muumuu, and I was not ready to go there. Recalling my high school uniform, a princess-seamed jumper, I remembered how easy it had been to alter that design to fit like a glove. Making myself a simple well-fitted sheath now seemed like just the thing to do.

I called a friend, an accomplished sewer and pattern maker, for fitting help. She got out the measuring tape, and when I saw the number she wrote down nest to “hip” I gasped. “Horrifying,” I said. “It’s perfect,” she said back. That changed everything. Or rather, that was the beginning of changing everything. She taught me to make a proper muslin, which was a turning point in my life as a sewer and artist. With that project, eventually executed in a sage silk dupioni, I learned to expect a perfect fit. And a perfect fit is a revelation in that it reveals the charm of the figure, and every figure–including my more-curves-than-ten-miles-of-bad-road figure–has its charms.

Thus began my intensive study of fit and pattern altering. I learned that a well-made garment is really a sculpture–a three-dimensional work of art. I learned to see every seam as an opportunity to get around a curve. I learned to see every piece I sew for myself as an opportunity to craft a contoured silhouette. So while it’s still possible to wonder that useless, insidious “Do I look fat?” (that voice just will not die the death it deserves!) it’s a lot harder when I’m wearing something I know is shapely and polished. If I feel fetching I’m a lot less likely to harangue myself about the differences between my body and the “right” body. After all, I am the body that this splendid jacket/dress/skirt/blouse fits to a T!

Reading through the comments has been very interesting. Sewing (and knitting) has been for me, too, something that slowly changed my mind from trying to fit myself into clothes to trying to fit my clothes to me – jenn really nailed it with her comment! Sewing has enabled me to cut out a source of unhappiness from my life (shopping for clothes), but also has made me really picky…

I read that some moaned the learnig curve on what suits them and what not. So here is what I do when in doubt: I go to a shop and try on a similar garment to what I consider sewing to see, if I can generally pull it off.

Thank you for a great topic! I’ve been many different sizes throughout my life. Honestly, I love the way I look as a size 12 but only when I’m naked! That may seem like a weird statement ,however, it’s true. Often times the clothes I wear don’t fit well and I’ve been more inclined to read sewing blogs rather than making my own clothes or at a minimum altering clothes. I find that sometimes verbalizing my thoughts in cyberspace actually gets me to implement the thought towards action and thus make it a reality.
Looking at my closet; where to begin???

What a wonderful read, it is always nice to know that others stubble in the same way. I have learned to love my body, it has taken me many years to get there part of it is understanding what clothes to wear.

However the one huge impact was learning about mindfulness. Strange as it may seem once I began to practice being in the present moment, I became aware of my body and the sensations I was experiencing. Sitting for two minutes feeling and enjoying the sensations of even a gentle breeze across my skin, has helped me to connect mind and body. We spend so much time thinking, imagining, dreaming, we often overlook the joy of the present moment and the wonderful experiences our bodies give us daily. Showers become wonderful moments of tickling water against my skin instead of me imagining a dreaded meeting to come, or what ever thoughts are running through my head. I think self compassion follows, you learn to love what is, not what should or can be.