Good morning, friends! For the editors of the Curvy Sewing Collective, conceiving of and launching this website has been such a thrill. Hours of thought and emotion have been put into every aspect of this project, from Tanya and T’s gorgeous design right on down to our various post categories. This is, we hope you can tell, a labor of love. So, as we kick off this adventure, I thought it would be fun to discuss one deceptively simple part of this project: our name.
I won’t start throwing roses and Shakespeare at you, because we all know names are important. When launching a community for women who identify as a certain size, the name is even more fraught with consequences. How do we talk about size, without offending wide swathes of the sewing community? With weight and fashion, such a feat is practically impossible! Women with similar measurements reference their bodies in wildly disparate ways. From our own coterie of editors, we all prefer different words: plus-sized, curvy, pear-shaped, and extravagantly buxom, just to name a few. Quite frankly, there’s a valid argument for not labeling one’s size whatsoever, to avoid giving in to sizist pigeon-holing.
You can see why this naming business proved interesting. We wanted to address the issues that come along with being a larger-than-average seamstress, without excluding anyone who might find support in this website. The Sewing Collective of Plus-Sized, Curvy Straight Sized, and Women Who Don’t Identify As a Size But Need FBAs is just a bit cumbersome, unfortunately. In the end, we kept it simple. Curvy covers the most women in the best way. It’s short, inoffensive, and doesn’t make us feel like ill-fated graduates from Camp Euphemism. However, we understand that it doesn’t sit well with every seamstress, for any number of excellent reasons.
Here’s the thing: we don’t care what you call yourself. We care that you find sewing help and inspiration here, no matter your size. We’re going to provide fitting help and inspiration for all manner of body types, from hourglass to pear-shape and from 8 to 28+. Body shaming and negativity have no place in the sewing process, nor at the Curvy Sewing Collective. Whatever way you choose to personally refer, or not refer, to your body is fine by us. In our own posts, you’ll see size referred to a dozen different ways, depending on the woman writing. They’re all welcome here, just as all seamstresses are welcome here.
I am glad that I found this site. I have not sat at a sewing machine in about 18 years. And now I would like to start sewing again. I have found a MAJOR problem in the sewing community. Patterns are hard to find for the larger women. I now buy RTW clothing in a 16. While at Joanns, this past weekend, EVERY pattern was not for my size.!!!!! I was very discouraged.
Thank you to the women who started this. Hopefully, I can find the help and support here!!
Oh at last!!!! I love to sew and used to make my own clothes years ago. I haven’t made anything since I put on a load of weight through steroid treatment. I went from a size 12 to an 18-20 in about 5 weeks. Since then I have hidden myself away under baggy clothes and leggings, not because I am ashamed, but because I can’t find the type of clothes I like in my size that are affordable and actually fit. I adore rockabilly and vintage 50’s dresses and skirts but also love steam punk. I used to alter patterns when I sewed before but haven’t really knon here to start to make the vintage Vogue patterns into my size. Finding this website is amazing. I can now learn again how to alter things to fit me AND create my own style and stand out. I am an artist and I need to be as creative in my clothing as I am in painting. Thank you so much for this website and to all you ladies on here who are willing to share this amazing journey. We ROCK!!!!
I’m not sure about the words ‘Curvy’ or ‘Extravagantly Buxom’. I’m also a petite size 8 who happens to have a large bust. This probably makes me extravagantly buxom, but as I’m otherwise slim it’s kind of depressing to be lumped in with larger ladies. It’s also kind of depressing that the fashion industry permits me to be petite or large busted but not both. Any body else have this problem? If there is a website for women my shape, please let me know, otherwise I’ll stick with this one.
Yeah getting lumped in with us must be depressing…
Yes, that was pretty rude, @doola85:disqus
Ditto Amalie J’s and Cheryl Schenck’s comments. Geez.
I am always looking for styles that are adaptable to my sewing needs. I am 5’8″ and live in a cold climate! I have to grade up a pattern from size 24. Large bust, long legs, long arms and big waist. Nothing RTW has fit me since i was 11, when Grandmother made my clothes. I started to sew when I was about 16. After two illnesses, I gained weight, again, having lost some, so my closet is a mish-mash of things that don’t fit, might yet fit, and the things I have made which actually do fit. I have used Barbara Dekkert’s book to get the gist of how to grade patterns and find it isn’t nearly as hard as I had thought. I use a tape measure to decide how I want it to be, and go for it! I have wasted months and months of indecision over my new shape, and now realize it isn’t that hard to fit me. I am somewhat disabled, and even though I like to think I never go anywhere, or do anything, I really do need clothes that look good most days of the week. Congrats on your Curvy website, and I shall enjoy it.
I’m thrilled to have found this site. I am 56 and 5ft tall and over 200 lbs… trying to find things to fit me feels IMPOSSIBLE mainly because it is in the pre-made world of retail… Here it is Thanksgiving night… I’m thankful I found your site..
Thanks for having it… I’m also fashion challenged as my daughters would tell you, I’m not good at knowing what goes with what or how to wear things that give me slimmer look- I have 4 grown children, who I raised by myself and I have 8 grandchildren with number 9 due April 2015…. I’m now happily married and am disabled due to back problems and COPD… And I really needed this… I don’t get out much- so the interactions with the group will do me a world of good and I’ll get to learn how to sew for little ole me in the process. Thanks so much.
I love this site. I’ve been avoiding sewing for awhile because I didn’t want to take measurements that I was sure would hurt my feelings. I’m taking baby steps, but I’m getting there. I guess measuring a pattern to find the flat pattern measurement is a start, right? 🙂
Tomorrow – the body measurement!
I have found that my measurements are mine and that are good when only used to purchase a pattern. Ignore the size of the pattern and they vary from company to company, like finding a good pair of jeans. Once I embraced buying and making what fits and not getting stuck on a number I was much more content with myself….from 48-41-52
So glad to find this site. I am curvy and also quite short. I’ve been sewing for a long time but always learn from others. I love a great fitting pair of pants. I love dresses and have finally decided that showing my legs again is OK. Still have trouble not wearing pantyhose. I am 67, hence the pantyhose thing. I have two sweet fluffy dogs, 4 grandchildren and am a widow. But life is good.
Oh my!!! I’m thrilled to have found this site! I have a lot to learn in sewing, as I am mostly self-taught. Not doing too badly 🙂 but looking forward to reading and learning from everyone here!
I LOVE this site, these posts, and the responses!!! I’m nodding in agreement as I read them. LOL. I find myself wishing I could actually meet Mary to try to jump start my 35 yr absence from sewing and abysmal shopping record with RTW clothes but how likely is that? OMG, she’s in Waco, a whole 16 miles from my town!!!
I’m doing a happy dance, just hoping, praying, that MAYBE, I can one day meet these talented ladies because I know I’m beautiful on the inside , it’s these darn clothes that don’t fit ME right and that plays tricks on your brain. I can’t wait to learn how to figure out what size I should cut a pattern to fit me. Good luck, everyone!!!
I’m so pleased to have stumbled across this site this morning and what a wonderful post! Language can be difficult and have different meanings for each of us, so thoughtful of you to discuss this and the intent of the site in this way.
I am so thrilled to discover this site. I think it’s a great idea. I come under your FBA definition (your descriptions made me smile!) and can’t wait to see patterns on others of a similar size, pick up tips etc all in one place. I will be looking forward to every post!
I appreciate the care taken in naming – there’s no pleasing everyone, but the words we use about ourselves matter.
I like the sections so far, and I’m definitely looking forward to this site’s growth!
So very glad this is an all inclusive welcoming bunch, there’s nothing that gets me more upset than certain militant ladies celebrating their curves whilst inferring that slimmer girls aren’t as ‘real’. I’ve got friends who can’t for the love of pete put on weight, one from a medical condition and two kids who are currently naturally slim despite eating like horses….it’s so upsetting to see tabloid newspapers and magazines picking on slim women who they have NO IDEA what’s happening in their lives and suggesting they should eat a pie or worse imply they must have eating disorders. Personally I’ve long tried to claim back and diffuse the word fat for myself, because fat is just a describing word and if we claim it back it shouldn’t be any different to other describing words like tall, blonde, redhead, short. I’m a 20 on top and a 24 on bottom. That’s not slim or thin or average or even curvy, I’m fat and that isn’t a negative word, it’s just a description of what I am. But I’m not just fat, fat isn’t what I am, I’m also British, funny, smart, and pink-haired. And I ramble.
Yes, what you said!
Tempest, I just read your post and shed a tear. THANK YOU!!!!! I feel like I just found a sewing site where I “fit in”.
Thank you to the wonderfully courageous and adventuresom ladies that run this site. I am just starting out at sewing and am pretty much terrified about sewing clothes for myself. Like I said above, I feel like I have found a place where I “fit in”.
Mumdeedum
You forgot awesome, you’re also awesome. But then you said British, which would make that a bit redundant. I need one of your sewing grans for my own lol theres some on youtube that i just adore!
I couldn’t agree more about about the “real women have curves” crap that started sooo many years ago, I ranted against it as well on my own fb page a year or so ago. Some ad, somewhere, someone realizing the larger demographic and figuring out the button to push. That just means the ball’s in our court. We’re all of like mind.
Forget tags and labels. Forget stressing about trying to be thicker or thinner. The stress alone will prevent the desired result anyway! We need to feel good. Now. Not just “when” or “if only”.
REAL WOMEN HAVE MINDS.
I’m so glad to find a sewing blog site that gets the part we should all focus on. Now we can drop all that nonsense and go sew stuff that fits us each just right <3
I love this post! Thank you so much for taking the time to write it, and to explain! I love the name and love that it is so inclusive!
I’m so excited to have found y’all!! I just started sewing this year so I’m a very beginner. I’m also curvy size RTW kjnda a 14. Kinda a 16. Lol
I’m so ready to learn how to sew my own clothes. I’ve only just finished my first pair of drawstring shorts so when I say beginner boy do I mean it! I have a feeling y’all sill be wildly popular and hugely successful!
I’m looking forward to how this site grows and evolves. I’m not particularly plus-sized but I’ve got an hourglass figure. Learning to fit the small waist in between big hips and bust has been a hard task and I tend to identify with the whole ‘curvy/whatever the words’ body image because of those curves.
I also sew most of my mother’s clothes and she is plus-size. I love making clothes that suit her, including fitting really nicely. And I have been teaching a plus-sized friend to sew, and I was completely at sea as to what styles worked for her, let alone fitting them nicely. I could certainly do with more help!
im like you not really a plus size, i orignally came here to learn how to make better FBAs in my clothes. otherwise in most off the rack clothes my waist gets completely lost and my tops become button launchers.
as ive looked around i think i may end up sewing several things for my more Juno-esk (plump, plus sized …etc) friends.
This was beautifully put. I class myself as big, but mostly because no RTW tops or dresses fit over my boobs, unless they are more forgiving knits. I haven’t had a blouse or shirt since I was about 15, and it’s not my fault, it’s down to unrealistic sizing on all garments.
At the moment I am ‘fat’ in my eyes, but even once I have lost the extra weight, I’ll always be curvy
http://www.calascrafts.blogspot.com
THANK YOU! When a pattern doesn’t fit, it is the WRONG size regardless of MY size!
Amen, Megan!! The beauty of sewing is that we can fit every set of measurements–there should be no one excluded from this craft!
I’m so delighted that this is happening! Brilliant idea and state of mind!
Thank you so much, Za! The response has been absolutely overwhelming. There are many, many of us like-minded seamstresses out there!
Beautiful words. Beautiful women.
The problem with RTW and sewing patterns is not the customer, it is the industry. They simply refuse to recognise that woman have shape, we are not a rectangle or a oblong, because to admit this would cost them time and money.
My husband works in the garment industry supplying several emergency services departments with corporate and operational wear. He has told me often that the pattern makers make his life very difficult as he is trying to fit tens of thousands of women into these garments. The pattern drafters start with a small size pattern block and for each upward size they simply add a set number of in/cm to the entire outline and move any darts or tucks a set distance. So an XL is perhaps simply 12 inches larger all over than an XS with darts moved outwards 8 inches. It does not fit anyone. Most of the women he is dressing have to be sent off to the tailor to have the clothes adjusted. It’s a rare customer than can don a pair of trousers and be happy with the fit. Hubby is in that industry and he cannot force change so I doubt that we, the customers, have much chance. Most of us have been sending the message via our pocketbooks for decades and nothing has changed.
So, knowing that because I have an hourglass shape, nothing RTW is ever going to look good on me, I make my own clothes.
Knowing that this disregard for the female form extends to the pattern makers, not just the garment manufacturers, I inspect every pattern that tempts me with a view to how I will have to alter it to fit properly and how any alterations will affect the style, the drape and movement. It means I tend to fall back on a treasured trove of already altered patterns rather than trying out new ones as misjudgements can cost time, money and emotions – nothing is so heartbreaking as a badly made dress in a gorgeous expensive fabric.
I am really glad to see the CSC arrive as it will enable all of us to share successes and failures, pattern reviews, tips and hints, as well as the joy of being a woman with a shape as individual as our personalities, lives and loves.
Viva La Revolution!!
Love this comment! Thank you. Once I realized what the RTW sizing schema really was, my mind was blown, KrankyWitch. Of course, things didn’t fit me correctly–the extravagant hourglass shape is not who the blocks are based off of. It was never going to work! The fact that many pattern companies extend this sizing method to patterns enrages me, as it does you. I’m always so excited, when I find out a company actually used multiple blocks, as they increased in size. That is how it should always be done, dang it! One block will never proportionally fit every woman, which isn’t the home sewer’s fault, it’s the pattern companies’.
I’m a patternmaker in RTW -33 years now.
Kranky: I understand your husband’s frustration but his conclusions are somewhat cursory. I wish I had just half the say-so to make those decisions that he says we have. We don’t. It’s designers who determine the size specifications and base pattern size -not us. And believe me, I go to battle every single day with designers who want a small stock size. And plus sizes? Don’t get me started. One needs to start with a wholly separate block but you know, that is double the cost. Customers think we’re trying to inflate the cost of services and that it really doesn’t matter. Last but not least, it is IMPOSSIBLE to use one or even two block sizes to fit 10,000 people. Were it possible, the profit potential is inestimable and I (for one) would have figured that out, patented it and retired 10 years ago.
As far as me, as a representative of my industry, having “disregard for the female form”… I don’t even know how to respond to that. I don’t hate myself or other women; I do what I can, within the confines of what control I do have, to please the customer. That my customer’s vision of design execution doesn’t match your ideal (or even mine) does not mean I don’t care about the end consumer. Why does it not occur to consumers that we, in the trenches of the trade, are equally if not more frustrated by the performance and fit of mass market brands?
Well said and wonderful!
Thank you so much, Jan!
Beautifully put!
Thank you, Geri!
Thanks for writing this. I struggle to find the right words to use sometimes and am scared I’ll offend despite trying so hard not to. So much in the sewing world uses a ‘standard fit model’ as a starting base for patterns and yet so many of us simply don’t have a figure which is ‘standard’, or in those sort of proportions. But they have to start somewhere for ‘the norm’ and so do all of us without a ‘standard/normal/model’ figure. I like the term curvy too and agree it can describe all those sewists with fitting issues, whether plus size or not. Keep up the great work.
Thank you so much for your comment, Deby! As a writer, I have exactly the same complicated feelings about the language we use, especially in regards to women and our bodies. It can be so difficult to navigate those waters linguistically, when so many emotions, insecurities, and personal biases are wrapped up in these words. And yet, you’re exactly right. We have to find some way to talk about it in sewing, because we need the help that comes along with such identifiers! I am so glad “curvy” seems to go over well with most people out there.
I’m glad that this post is one of the first. Labels, assigned by others, can be hurtful even when hurt is not intended. I have no problem referring to myself as a “fat grrl” but others might find the word “fat” to be too triggering and not want it associated with themselves. Also, they might find it odd that a 42yo woman still thinks of herself as a “grrl.” 🙂 I look forward to following what this site produces!
Thank you for the awesome input, Jessica! It’s funny, the words we use to talk about our bodies and age are both such similar, complicated issues, aren’t they? I’m in my late twenties and still can’t stop referring to myself as a girl, even though some of my friends get riled up when people label them as such. It’s the same with the whole fat/curvy/skinny/thing debate. I’m definitely in the camp of whatever works for you personally, is the right way to go. Also, I’m never not going to love “grrl”…it’s so punk rock.