My last WIP for the week is actually a multi-part project. And, trust me, I know I am boring you to tears with this series of posts. But it's really helping me organize and prioritize.
So, I'm making an easy breezy wrap skirt and matching bag for each of my sisters (I have four of them) from the wax cloth that Pop Muse bought on his last trip to Ghana. My sister Polyhymnia is currently pregnant, so we are skipping the skirt for now.
I'm using Kwiksew 2954 for the skirt:
And Simplicity 5151 for the bags. I know I could draft a simple tote bag pattern myself. But quite frankly, this pattern fits the bill for options and ease, which is what I am going for with this project.
Now on to the interesting part. In my original post I mentioned that my sisters and I all have very different shapes and sizes. We range in height from 5'6" to 6", some of us are busty/curvy, others are waifs. In our whole lives, sharing clothing has really never been much of an option given how we differ. So, imagine my surprise when I looked at waist and hip measurements and it turns out that everyone (excepting Polyhymnia) basically falls into KwikSew's size medium. Now, I know that this is a very easy fit pattern and S/M/L sizing tries to cover a wider variety of bodies in a smaller number of sizes. This exists in RTW, too. But it was shocking to me that when I look at us, my eye sees that we are very differently sized. And yet, three of us have the very same waist measurement.
What this has made me keenly aware of is how differences in proportion make women's bodies look vastly different. Even with the same waist measurement, our differences in hip measurement and height, give us each a very different appearance.
Apologies for not providing a picture of my lovely sisters. To be honest, I couldn't find one that had all of us recently and I wouldn't put their pictures up for scrutiny without their express permission, anyway.
That said, I hope to show finished skirts on sisters in the end. But in the interim, have you had any experiences like this? Where you have realized how height truly affects proportion? Or how women with the same measurement can look totally different?
To be honest, I am now sweating bullets about the idea of trying to create something that not just fits, but also flatters each of my sisters. Right now, the skirt pattern is traced. I am going to alter the length for each person and do a few minor other changes. Also, I bought bamboo rings for some of the purses. Naturally I forgot to buy matching thread.
That is ok since I won't get to do much more until the diaper bag is finished. More on that in a few days!
So, I'm making an easy breezy wrap skirt and matching bag for each of my sisters (I have four of them) from the wax cloth that Pop Muse bought on his last trip to Ghana. My sister Polyhymnia is currently pregnant, so we are skipping the skirt for now.
I'm using Kwiksew 2954 for the skirt:
And Simplicity 5151 for the bags. I know I could draft a simple tote bag pattern myself. But quite frankly, this pattern fits the bill for options and ease, which is what I am going for with this project.
Now on to the interesting part. In my original post I mentioned that my sisters and I all have very different shapes and sizes. We range in height from 5'6" to 6", some of us are busty/curvy, others are waifs. In our whole lives, sharing clothing has really never been much of an option given how we differ. So, imagine my surprise when I looked at waist and hip measurements and it turns out that everyone (excepting Polyhymnia) basically falls into KwikSew's size medium. Now, I know that this is a very easy fit pattern and S/M/L sizing tries to cover a wider variety of bodies in a smaller number of sizes. This exists in RTW, too. But it was shocking to me that when I look at us, my eye sees that we are very differently sized. And yet, three of us have the very same waist measurement.
What this has made me keenly aware of is how differences in proportion make women's bodies look vastly different. Even with the same waist measurement, our differences in hip measurement and height, give us each a very different appearance.
Apologies for not providing a picture of my lovely sisters. To be honest, I couldn't find one that had all of us recently and I wouldn't put their pictures up for scrutiny without their express permission, anyway.
That said, I hope to show finished skirts on sisters in the end. But in the interim, have you had any experiences like this? Where you have realized how height truly affects proportion? Or how women with the same measurement can look totally different?
To be honest, I am now sweating bullets about the idea of trying to create something that not just fits, but also flatters each of my sisters. Right now, the skirt pattern is traced. I am going to alter the length for each person and do a few minor other changes. Also, I bought bamboo rings for some of the purses. Naturally I forgot to buy matching thread.
That is ok since I won't get to do much more until the diaper bag is finished. More on that in a few days!
11 comments:
Yay for sistah diversity! And I totally relate to what you're saying but from the perspective of boobs. So many women wear the same size and they all need something different on the basis of where the breast volume sits or how the circumference of the back is soft (vs firm). Proportion is everything. I know you'll make beautiful skirts for all of your sisters. Your eye is attuned as a sewist and as someone who's watched them become the shapes they are. No worries!
A very good friend of mine and I had exactly the same bust, waist and hip measurement, I was 3-4 inches taller. Even I didn't believe we had the same measurements. She was all boob and I was all back on the bust measurement. The waist, she looked way smaller from the front but I looked smaller in profile, the butt, well we were both, er amply endowed. No one we worked with believed us. It was an eye opener. Oh yeah and I had far broader shoulders.
How sweet of you to sew for your sisters! Do they sew too???
Ha, I hear you completely. I made my sisters (I have three) PJs last Christmas. And yes, we are all different shapes - similar(ish) heights, give or take a few cms, but very different hip-waist-bust proportions, I thought. Turns out we all have a very similar hip width, which just boggles my mind. We also share a very long torso in relation to the rest of our bodies.
Not really, and not because I haven't tried to get them into it! Two of them have sewing machines and dabble a little, but I'm the only one that sews garments.
I kind of love that we are all so different. I didn't get bust measurements because I didn't need them, but we are all different there too, and it definitely plays in to how I see our size/shape as very different.
Right! It's really amazing how different a woman can look based on where she carries her weight/width.
It's so funny, right? Especially when it's the women you grew up with!
It's so interesting, isn't it? I was just working on a skirt for my sister this weekend, and realized that our measurements put us into the same size, but it just didn't seem possible! I'm 4" taller than she is and we carry our weight so differently that it didn't seem like our measurements could even compare.
I worked for Wrangler in the 1980s. Womenswear division did a thorough study of body shapes and sizes in a re-sizing project. You not only have to consider how bodies are shaped from side-to-side, but also from back-to-front. That is, a garment made to fit a size 10 woman looks entirely different on someone who's wide from side to side, but relatively flat from back to front; than on either a woman who's skinny from side to side, but deep from back to front OR on someone who's weight is fairly evenly distributed around her hips. Weird.
I've always been able to trade clothes with my best friend even though she's at least half a foot taller and way curvier than me-- the clothes fit us totally differently but are the right size, weirdly. Often if the style or proportion or whatever doesn't look good on one of us it suits the other one.
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