The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by sGreer:

Natalie: the sewing industry in the US has had a consistent pattern size scheme since the 30's, I think, when someone first laid down the law and everyone else followed. And since you'd be altering the patterns yourself, it's not actually that difficult (once you get the knack, which takes a bit of practice -- I suggest using an old bed sheet as practice fabric) to buy a size 16 pattern if your bust is size 16, and just slim down the waist if your waiste is 12 or 14.

I've only ever met two women who were perfectly proportioned according to sewing charts. My sister, the right-down-the-line 14 (who's also 5'7" so height fits too), and a coworker who was a perfect sixteen...but also 4'11" -- which meant all the pants and skirts fit her from waist to mid-thigh, and from there on were waaaaay too long. She had a long body and short legs, so she couldn't shop in petite sections, where they assume the body is proportional to the leg length.

I remember one brand of dresses I used to buy that had a label of "one size fits a lot of people" ... there was something so amusing about that, at least to me. Not everyone, but a lot of people.

And I try very hard to buy men's clothing whenever possible -- jeans, shirts, socks, and so on. I buy one pair of men's jeans and can wear them for two, three years; I buy one pair of women's and the knees are blown out six months later, and I'm really NOT that hard on my clothing. There is a planned obsolescence in women's clothing that aggravates the difficulty of finding stuff that fits.

Lastly, there's always so much about boobs 'n hips 'n waist, but I find the hardest thing to fit is upper arm. My arms are 13" around; my sister's are 13.5", and it's not because we were athletes -- my mother's arms are 13", too, and she never did more than some aerobics back in the 80s. But any of us try on shirts and even if it fits in the chest, waist, or shoulders, the arms are still so tight sometimes we can't even cross our arms without getting the ugly streak-folds of fabric tension across the arms. Plus there's that lovely feeling of having your circulation cut off. Banana Republic is one of the worst for skinny-arm cuts; Old Navy seems to run looser in the upper arms.

Given that I'm in Texas now, which is enough to depress one (the upcoming vote on the m-f-only marriage amendment) and excite one (deLay in court just six miles from me!)... this download may be small but I had the volume turned up anyway.

I need to get me a flag that says, "Give 'em hell, Harry!" and then I can wave it at moments like these.

Comment statistics for sGreer on the Making Light blog

Total: 2 comments. View all these comments on a single page.