pants

Those of you who read my blog may have noted the vow I made at the start of the year to stop buying premade clothes. I was clear back then that there may be some exceptions, but my starting point was home made is best. I have been taking photos of what I wear and trying to pay attention to the garments I wear, how flattering I think they are, how comfortable, what they cost, how well they last. I wanted some data to back up my feeling that buying clothes is not better, and to help me decide if, what and where I'd be buying any clothes I didn't make.

I've been finding this vow an easy one to keep. In fact once I made the decision and stopped paying attention to store made clothes I felt entirely liberated about six different ways. But then I got a yearning. I read this post and I suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to buy me some jeans. Some designer jeans, made especially for plus sizes and heavily discounted. I had just made myself some jeans and they weren't bad but they weren't perfect either and in a rash of consumer lust I just wanted a pair of perfectly fitting wear every day jeans.

Now I wear jeans a lot. If I'm not at work and the weather isn't too too hot odds are on that I'm wearing jeans of some kind. I love them and for me they are pretty close to the perfect garment in terms of practicality and comfort. I'd started sewing my own last year because at my size I have pretty much been confined to cheap chain store plus size versions and for many years I bought pretty much any pairs I could find that fit me because, well they weren't too easy to come by. At around $50 a pair I've probably bought and worn out (or thrown out) a pair or two a year and while I've continued to buy and wear I don't have many super fabulous my favourite jeans memories.

On top of all this I've lost a little weight in the last year. Not a heap mind you, but just enough to make the jeans that were a wee bit big before too be quite big now. I've kept on wearing them but my consciousness is growing that they are probably looking worse now than they ever did. I think I tend to sit between two sizes and err on the side of caution, buy them slightly too big, wear and stretch them and end up with baggy bum syndrome.

So when I seriously considered buying some new fancy pants jeans and started touring the Embody site it didn't take long for me to start lusting in earnest for some proper fitting jeans. And when I found the model I liked the most had a discontinued colour that I could get for less than a quarter of their original price it was a done deal. I bought them, dyed them to darken the colour and shortened them. They were a much tighter fit than I would normally buy and at first I was hesitant. I wore them for a day and found them quite comfortable, but they gave me a bit of a 'muffin top' (a look I detest) so I decided I needed to do some comparing.

I started out just wanting to compare them to the jeans I had most recently made, but the exercise quickly extended to every pair of pants I own.



My conclusions?

Most of my pants need altering!

Pants that look OK from the front can look pretty awful from behind. I think this is because my belly is the most 'oversized' part of me shapewise and because I can see it I tend to buy or make clothes that look right from the front. The lower part of my butt is relatively small and all my hip shaping is at the back instead of the sides. So while I need to measurement of the hips to be big, it needs to be in front and back, not side to side, and I don't need a correspondingly large measurement across the lower bottom.

I think this means I need to work harder on making the same pattern until I get a better fit around the butt. There are a few things I already know to do on patterns - drop the side seams a little, curve a shaped waistband to have the curves further towards the centre back and front rather than the sides, slightly raise the centre back and take in the centre back seam. But I need to mess with those crotch angles to do something about those flappy bits above the tops of the back of my thighs if I ever want to wear wide legs again!

I also need to pay a lot of attention to fabric plus pattern plus fit. Rows 11, 12, 13 and 14 are all made with the same pattern but different fabrics. One has already been altered and another needs altering, but the other 2 are fine. There are other examples here of the same pattern used twice, though in different sizes, and both times whatever was wrong the first time wasn't fixed by changing the size, because shape is just as important as size.

So weigh in - which ones do you like and why? What ones look awful, what alterations do you think need to be made to what? Can you guess which ones were bought or home made, which ones were expensive (in either fabric or bought garment) and which ones were cheap??

edited to add -
I've done my first refit! The last row pants now look like this - befores on the left, after on the right.

As though I were making the pants new I took in each seam - it would have been good to pull them apart before I did this but I didn't know when I started that I'd have to go this far! I took off the waist facing and started with the side seams. Next I took in the back and crotch seam and then the inleg seam. Before attaching a new waist facing I lowered the waistline, most on the sides, then the front and least on the back. Lastly I attached a new waist facing. They aren't perfect by any means - the back of the leg still sits lower under the butt making creases on the bias from front to back. Not sure how to fix this! Anyone else know?

Also - I am fascinated by your opinions - thank you!

hair - not the musical

A while ago someone posted a question in the comments about hair styles on plus sizes. I think this is a really interesting question, and one I feel is paid way too little attention.

Not that I'm saying I have any answers here, just that I continue to view my own hair do in the particular light of my size.

Here's a selection of hair styles on me. The first dates back to 1985 (I can hear you laughing), and the last is a party wig, but everything in between slots between 2002 and now, in chronological order.
There are two types of hair in which I feel happiest, and they are oddly diametrically opposed. For most of my adult life I have had very short hair, for a lot of it almost crew cut short. I like it because it is easy and practical and a bit edgy. It makes my hair look thicker and stronger. I hate that I need to get it cut all the time, that a bad cut leaves you with nowhere to hide, and that it can amplify my (supposed) assertive and intimidating personality.

Equally I love my hair longer and fuller. The best I ever had was when it was spiral permed at the end of the 80s. I know, perms just kill your hair and grow out awfully, but those months where I had fullness without 'big' hair were a total joy. Somehow the fullness makes me feel more balanced, like the extra size on my head somehow works better with the extra size on my body, and more feminine to boot (whatever that means). But too often my thin limp hair goes, well, thin and limp, and then it looks awful. And you need product and clips and bands and brushes and you have to pull hair out of the drain all the time.

So for me it works something like this. I wear my hair short for years and then for some unpredicted reason (like losing my hairdresser or being overseas or not having time) I decide to grow it. And for a while I enjoy having the hair thing for playing, the hair styles and plaits and knots, each new cut and it's variations on where the layers fall and how the volume sits, short fringe, thin fringe, no fringe. And people say, oh, actually long hair really suits you! So I keep it.

And then one day I wake up and look at myself in the mirror and think, what was I thinking?! Who is that vain, trussed up person in the mirror? And I rush out and get it all cut off. And people say, wow, that's funky! that really suits you!

So I don't know. In this particular incarnation of the cycle I halted at the usual cut off point and just had my hair taken back to the shoulders. That was a few months ago and really, it is time I got it cut again, those top layers are long and limp. Looking back at this collection of photos I like none so much as the really long and the really short.

So maybe it is time I went short again?