Hello everyone!
I hope you are all well and happy and that whatever you are sewing right now is coming along nicely!
It’s time to announce a new Curvy Sewing mini-series: The Peculiarities of Plus Size Sewing. This will be a chatty monthly opinion post on the weird and wonderful world of sewing for larger bodies, and all of the issues and benefits in doing so.
The idea is to take a general sewing topic, for instance, piecing together PDF patterns, and put a plus size spin on it, creating a forum where we can identify what is different for plus sized sewers, what the common problems are and how we might troubleshoot them. It’s also an opportunity to have a bit of a laugh about the annoying assumptions that many non-curvy sewists and pattern designers have about sewing and the stuff that annoys us, ie. ‘It is SUCH a great pattern, and you can squeeze it out of a metre of fabric!’….. YEAH IF I WANT IT TO COVER ONE ARM. Please note however: this is all good natured fun, and we don’t want any body shaming language in this discussion, including disparaging remarks about thinness.
The GIANT pattern piece
I have a list of topics in my head that I think would be good to cover in this, but I am keen to hear of more, and also take contributions from you wonderful bunch. So far I have:
- The expense of needing to use more fabric
- Huge pattern pieces and storage
- TERRIBLE plus sized patterns (tents)
- Separate plus size ranges
- Small size ranges of patterns
- The need to learn how to grade patterns/do FBAs right from the start
- Models and sewing pattern packets that don’t look like us
- Sewing lessons that aren’t geared to curvy sewists
- The extra time taken for sewing much longer hems and seams!
What else should we cover? What do you think is unique about curvy sewing? And do any of you fancy writing a piece on one of these subjects?
My first FBA
Editor’s note: Wow, this has been up for less than 24 hours and there are already so many FANTASTIC suggestions! There are plenty that I will add to the list, and some that could stand to be developed further outside this series. Thank you so much for sharing all your tales of trial and error. I certainly can’t claim (as a sewist of just over a year’s experience) to know all the solutions to these peculiarities, but I feel hopeful that between us, we have so much useful experience that is much better shared. So thank you. And as I said before, if any of you want to write posts on any of these issues, please do let us know, either in the comments below or by emailing mail@curvysewingcollective.com
The way a pattern is drafted can make a big difference to the amount of fabric needed and the layout of the pieces. I have a pattern drafting book by Elizabeth Allemong. The back of pants is drafted wider than the front. There’s several reasons for this but the biggest issue that resulted for me was finding that my back leg piece would not fit on 112cm wide fabric because of the width of the crotch piece. I either had to piece it there similar to a gusset or do what I did and transfer some of the inner leg back to the front to make the back piece smaller.
A personal one for me is sewing to allow for the fact that I tend to chafe in summer. If fabric doesn’t stretch then I cut pants legs in the thigh area a little wider to allow for spread when I sit down. I have found though that loose pants legs tend to chafe in the inner thigh area if I have to walk any kinds of distance. They also ride up. When sewing for work clothes, I cut a closer fit and only use stretch fabric. I don’t need to allow so much ease and they don’t chafe when I have to go make deliveries. Living in Perth with lots of summer heat, I try to not use synthetic fabrics. Fabrics that stretch but have a large proportion of natural fibre are something I constantly hunt for.
I found Barbara Deckert’s Craftsy class had some great tips for plus-size sewing.
I just recently made a wrap dress (Butterick 5898) for a college reunion. It’s a Connie Crawford design and I have had problems when ever I’ve made skirts from her patterns but not because of the patterns, I’ve messed something up somewhere and ended up with something that was not what I expected.
I have a swayback and I never really can figure out how to get it to come out right, especially when there is not center back seam. I also have large hips. So I fussed and fretted over cutting the dress out because I didn’t trust myself to get it right even though I’ve been sewing for more years than I care to recall. Everything came out fine except that the hem was shorter than I expected because of the swayback…. I think. I probably should have made a muslin first to work out any problems, but because I worried so much I procrastinated and in the end didn’t have time to make both the muslin and the dress.
The dress came out okay and I wore it do the Friday night dinner. But I kept checking to make sure the dress wasn’t riding up in the back.