Guest Blog: The Window

My best friend has Fibromyalgia, which is getting steadily worse as her doctors seem to be giving up on her. There's been a lot of talk in the Fatosphere about marginalization of ill or differently abled fat people in the quest for acceptance for the "good fatties". All that does is ignore that thin line of sheer chance that seperates the currently abled, with all our privilege, from a state of otherness. If we leave anyone behind, we doom our future selves to be left behind in turn.

My friend wrote this as a way of coping with the changes she's had to make in her life because of her illness. She said she was "getting her tears out on paper". I asked her if I could post it here as a guest blog, because I think it says something we all need to hear. -Jo

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*The Window.*

I look out the window and I see her dancing. She’s happy and she is free. She moves with such feeling. There’s a fire she dances around. It sparks her soul and it makes her feel alive. She reaches for the fire. I watch her dancing with the fire as if they are one. You can see how happy she is as you see the fire move around her body.

She’s walking on the beach in the sand. The deep sand engulfs her feet. The sand feels warm and makes her want to run and play in the water. The water is beautiful. Just as she is. The high wave crashes against her body. She loves how the waves hit her with such force. You can tell how much she loves to fight the waves. It’s a silly game they play together. Will she fall and let the wave win? Does the wave really win if she falls? It’s really the game they play together that makes them both winners. Her free to stand up against the wave and the water free to create the wave. There are no losers.

I watch her walking through a forest. Picking up little trinkets of herbs and twigs as she goes. You can tell she can hear the trees and the trees love to talk to her. She approaches a steep hill where she sees some beautiful flowers she wants to pick. She climbs the hill with ease. She can smell the flowers even before she reaches the top. Bending over to pick the flowers, she smells each one as she makes a beautiful natural bouquet to bring home. She didn’t realize how high the hill was till she reached the top. From the top she looks out and sees the vastness of Lake Michigan. She watches the waves. She sees the forest below her. She sits at the top of the hill and watches the sun set. One of her very favorite things to do; watching a sunset from high places and beaches. Nothing is more beautiful.

She runs down the hill. Running is so freeing. Feeling the wind in her hair. It whispers to her. It twirls around her as if it wraps its arms around to embrace her.

I see her laying flat on the ground. A clear blue day. Just enough fluffy white clouds to gaze at. She lies there and she watches each cloud as it slowly passes and changes. She looks to see what she can in the clouds. A mighty dragon, A phoenix, a small bird, a fish and a butterfly. All from the same group of clouds. She is able to get up with such ease. Dandelions everywhere. She picks them and pops the head off for fun. Thanking each one as she goes for giving her such joy in there splendid color. The way they glow on her skin and eyes.

She walks up to her little girl and picks her up as if she was as light as a feather. They dance around in the dandelions. Her child in her arms. Giggling and playing. Ring around the rosies, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down. They do this over and over. Never feeling exhausted. No pain, just joy.

Its near Christmas, I’m watching her create! Wonderful gifts made from balls of yarn and love. She is crocheting the most beautiful afghan. The colors just jump right out at her. Oh, how she loves colors. They make her feel alive inside. The afghan is going to keep someone warm and make them happy. Something that can be passed down to the next generations perhaps. Oh! I see slippers. They look so warm. She loves to make these slippers for her friends and family. Look, she made her son another warm hat. Her sister a pretty doily to put on her wedding table.

She reaches for a paint brush. The strokes of the brush make her feel so free. Nothing can take her places like color can. She turns on the CD player and she dances around as she puts paint on a canvas. So much ease in her dance and her brush stroke. The color gathers into a beautiful painting that she can either hang her self or pass on as a beautiful gift. She loves to create gifts. She loves to create…

No one is home. She is all alone. She is skipping and dancing through the house as she sings to really loud music. She moves with ease no care in the world while she dances and sings.

She sees her husband. She embraces him. She wraps around him and pushes him onto the bed. She sits on top of him and tells him how much she loves him. She leans down and lays her head on his chest. He embraces her and the embrace turns into a moment that will last long into the night.

I’m still looking at her through the window as the window slowly changes to a mirror. I see my own reflection. I take in a deep breath and sigh. Realizing I was merely watching who I used to be. Watching all the things I long for and can no longer do. The days before pain. The days before the days before. I want them back! I’m angry they are gone. I can’t do any one of those things anymore without pain. The things that give me the most joy cause me the most pain. Simple things like lying in the grass to watch the clouds. Climbing a hill, making my children gifts, embracing my husband with a long night embrace. All seem out of my reach.

I sat here today and asked myself why? Why are you so sad? Why do you feel so alone? A burden, a failure and these words flowed from my pen. I am not a writer for sure, but I want others to understand why even though I look healthy and normal on the outside, healthy and happy inside, I’m breaking in ways that have no words. I’m broken and I don’t know how to fix me. I don’t have a day with out pain. I can barely recall what its like to not be in pain. I would love so much to do what I could once do.

I do not want your pity. I’m blessed to have wonderful people in my life that bring me joy in other ways. I do not want you to share my pain. I just wanted to share this with you so perhaps in ways I can not express to you in spoken word, you would maybe understand why sometimes I may be distant, cranky, and sad. Why sometimes I don’t want to do things with you. I don’t want to hold you back.

So please never feel like you can’t go on with your life with out me. Never stop being you. Enjoy what you have. Freedom of movement. Freedom of movement is a terrible thing to take for granted. Don’t waste it. Dance when you can dance. Climb heights you can look off of. Create things with your hands you can pass on to others. Embrace those you love for long nights. Live a dream you have now. Don’t put it off till tomorrow. Because tomorrow your body my not allow you that grace.


Wendy Needham
September 12, 2009

Recipe Box: Quick and Easy Beef Stew Pot Pie

This recipe deviates quite a bit from my usual emphasis on fresh ingredients. I now find myself hosting a super-picky autistic teenager every other weekend, and there's nothing short of violating the Geneva Convention that's going to make him eat eggplant. But then I'm certaintly not into forcing anyone to eat something they don't like. I am, however, on a sort of mission to sneak some fruits and vegetables into this kid, because I don't think he gets any at his other home.

His pickiness, as explained by JD, is based on food familiarity. He'll try something that looks like something he's tried and liked before. If I serve a strawberry banana yogurt smoothie in a fancy glass, he won't even taste it. If I put it in a McDonald's cup, he'll drink it without even blinking.

So the downside of this recipe is that because of short time and guesswork as to how fancy I could go, I faked out a lot of ingredients. The upside is that because of faked out ingredients, this is a quick weekday kind of main dish that looks like it's more work than it is, or a great Sunday-night dinner that will make lunches all week. It turned out to be a bust in the sense that the teenager wouldn't touch it (not familiar enough), but a success in that it made about four meals for JD and I throughout the weekend. Feel free, of course, to substitute scratch or fresh elements for the ones listed.

Quick and Easy Beef Stew Pot Pie

2 refrigerated pie crusts (bring to room temperature)
2 cups beef stew (leftover or canned)
1 package instant mashed potatoes (2-3 cups prepared) preferably herbed or flavored
4 cups frozen vegetables (peas, carrots, broccoli, corn, etc.)
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/4-1/2 cup all purpose flour (can be white or wheat)

Use a 9" deep dish pie pan for preference, glass if possible. I used a round ceramic tart dish with straight sides and it worked perfectly.

Prepare the instant potatoes per the package directions. If you're using the plain kind or fresh potatoes, you can spice them up with a teaspoon of onion powder, half a teaspoon garlic powder, and a teaspoon of fresh or dried parsley.

Pre-heat the oven to 375

dust the bottom of the dish with flour. The easiest way to dust a dish evenly is to put a few tablespoons of flour in a wire mesh strainer. Hold the strainer over the dish and gently tap the side of the strainer with a spoon or finger. You should get a nice even dusting. This works well with decorative powdered sugar on desserts as well.

lay one layer of room-temperature pie crust in the bottom of the dish. If any hang over the end, cut it away to about 1/4" over the top of the dish.

Dust the bottom of the crust with flour

Add a layer of beef stew, followed by a layer of frozen vegetables, followed by a layer of cheese, then spread the mashed potatoes over the top. Depending on the size of your dish, you may have leftovers. It's ok to heap the ingredients up above the edges as long as the top pie crust can be laid over it all and still meet the edge of the pan.

Lay the top crust over the potatoes. Crimp the edges of the top and bottom crust together with your fingers to create a seal, and cut away any extra crust.

Use a sharp knife to make five cuts in the top of the crust, at least three inches long. This will allow steam to vent so that your crust doesn't puff up over the potatoes.

If you're feeling fancy and want one of those nice shiny glazed crusts, beat an egg white with a tablespoon of water and brush it over the top crust.

Bake 45 minutes to 1 hour. Since the ingredients are pre-cooked, your only concern is that the crust become nice and toasty brown. Put a sheet of aluminum foil or a baking sheet under the dish to catch drips in case it bubbles out the seams.

Let stand 10 minutes or so to cool, cut into slices and serve.

Vegetarian Variant

Skip the beef stew, add an additional 1 cup vegetables.

heat 1 cup of vegetable broth with 1 tablespoon corn starch over medium heat in a saucepan until the thickness of gravy.

Pour over frozen vegetables on bottom layer of pie, then assemble and prepare as usual.

Swine Flu and WLS...A Perspective

Thanks to Bri at Fat Lot of Good for a great collection of news stories highlighting the dangers of Weight Loss Surgery.

An interesting comparison sprung to mind and put things in perspective. Most of the articles quote the statistic that 1 in 50 patients die within three months of weight loss surgery. That's a 2% initial mortality rate. (the number who die from complications of the surgery within 5 years is much higher, and within their lifetime is even higher than that).

2% mortality rate. Within three months.

The CFR (Case Fatality Ratio) for the current strain of Swine Flu is estimated between 0.3 to 1.8% based on all the numbers I could find quoted in news articles and abstracts of study findings. That's of course just based on the death rate of people who have been infected, not the chance of the average person dying from it. Just as the WLS number is based on people who actually had the surgery.

In other words, just based on your chances of dying, it is safer to play tonsil hockey with someone hacking up Swine flu lung biscuits than it is to have Weight Loss Surgery.

Why is one a source of panic, and the other "for our own good"?

Roadtrip

I'm back! I'm sleep-deprived and energy depleted, exhausted from the weather and over-stimulated. I'm also re-reading Atlas Shrugged, and nothing sends me into a funk like curling up with a thousand pages of industrial despair. But at the moment I'm somewhat in the mood of Dorothy who finally wakes up in her very own bed for the first time in a long while.

I really got the fix of "somewhere else" that I needed before fall set in. I was so eager to get going that we drove for five hours on Wednesday night after I got out of work and crashed at a desperate little over-Lysoled trucker motel in Kentucky. The point was to be on our way. When it was pouring rain in the Smoky Mountains, JD said, casually, after spending half an hour climbing a narrow switchback road to the campground,

"You know, we're only about four hours from Savannah."

And we drove until midnight to get to Hilton Head and crash in what turned out to be a roach motel. Ok, one roach. I named him Lyle and JD,having faster reflexes than either Lyle or I, squished him with a tissue. But even though it was still pouring rain in Savannah, that rain was pouring on palm trees and Gardenias instead of our tent. We splashed around in the puddles for a while until we hit the Colonial Park Cemetery and the sun made something of a grudging entrance. We made it to Bonaventure and the Riverfront (areas I hadn't visited before) and found the only advertised Cajun restaurant in town. Their jambalaya was something fabulous. After the muggy intense heat in Savannah we had visions of cool misty mountains again and headed back to the Smokies. Thanks to the rain we were able to get a site in the Big Creek campground (they don't allow RV's and the sites are really quiet and private, so they're usually full). We hiked the 5 mile loop up to Mouse Creek Falls, swam at Midnight Hole, made it up the steep grade to Clingman's Dome, got seriously nasty looks for my tee-shirt ("I'm not anti-religion, I'm just anti-hypocrisy"), went to the Cherokee Reservation, and learned to hate ethanol (it sucks your engine's power in the hills; I had to buy premium gas just to get up some of the roads we drove). We got home, spent two packed days of errands, then headed up to my best friend's house for her annual labor day gathering. After another three days of sleeping on the ground, bug spray, ritual, drum circle and good conversation, I'm ready to simply be home for a while. Decompress. Process. Rest. Be still. Quit smoking (again).

I know that description doesn't sound as fun as it all really was, but right now I'm numb to enthusiasm. I suppose this is something of a transition post; to keep my "just one more day" blogging break from becoming another several-month disappearing act. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have caught up on some stillness and be more able to post something substantial.

Guest Post: The Good Fattie, Part 2

Jo: So I've been very sweetly and politely requesting (read: constant impatient nagging) JD to start guest posting for Unapologetically Fat. I know he has strong insights and the unique perspective of a feminist man who doesn't engage in body judgement, so I really wanted to see his voice heard in the FA community. He's come through with this post, which further examines the dangers which the Good Fattie mythology poses to the Fat Acceptance movement by comparing it with a similar dichotomy in the Second-Wave Feminist movement of the 60's. Enjoy!


The Good Fattie and the Bad Feminist
Guest post by JD

There's been a lot of talk recently about what it means to be part of the Fat Acceptance movement, and the way it changes how we think, both individually and collectively. Thanks to Jo's blog, I read MezzoShiri’s "Addicted to Life" post from a few weeks ago. I was struck by Mezzo's definitions of "good" fat people ("someone with pristine nutritional and exercise habits who remains fat") and "bad" fat people ("someone with imperfect eating and exercise habits") and the internal pressures she feels to be a "good" fat person.

I find it interesting how much the definitions of "good" fat people and "bad" fat people mirror one of the unspoken definitions of "good" feminists and "bad" feminists that came into prominence in the 60s and 70s (what is called "Second-Wave Feminism"). Though there was a lot of disagreement, even then, about what it meant to be a "good" feminist, it was easy to recognize one type of "bad" feminist – women who openly expressed their sexuality, even with the men who (it was said) opposed their liberation. In other words, "bad" feminists displayed lust.

When you look beneath the surface you can see how even in this so-called "age of acceptance" we're still subject to old-fashioned intolerance, justified by a thin facade of religion. Lust is a sin, a sin for which women are especially criticized, and therefore women who express their sexuality in the "wrong ways" are a bad example and they hurt the feminist movement. For a long time, a really good feminist was one who overcompensated for this perceived flaw by showing no outward sexuality whatsoever.

Though I suspect this guilt about lust began as an internal pressure felt by people simply seeking their identity – what I hear MezzoShiri describing – it didn't take long to become a force in the organizations that defined the feminist movement. The all-too-predictable result was women attacking other women for their lifestyle choices and the fragmentation of the feminist movement. If you question the depth of this fragmentation, listen to feminists argue (often violently) over the true meaning and impact of pornography, and the mental state of the women involved in it.

Yes, I said "mental state." The most commonly expressed feminist position on pornography is that it is not about sex, but is about violence and oppression, and that the women who participate in it are psychologically damaged and therefore incapable of giving consent to the actions they perform.

I’m not comfortable with pornography. I generally find it either laughable or disturbing. But what disturbs me more is seeing one group of women who seem rational and well-adjusted passing judgment on the mental health of another group of women who also seem rational and well-adjusted, but who make choices that first group doesn’t like. Both groups tend to identify themselves as feminists. I find myself asking: how does this advance the cause of women?

Within the Fat Acceptance movement there are people who feel torn in the same way that many feminists did:

Any fat person who doesn't look like she is enthusiastic about being active and exercising is automatically considered guilty of the sin of Sloth (a.k.a. good old-fashioned laziness). Since laziness is a sin and "bad" fat people are automatically assumed to be guilty of it, to win the rights of Fat Acceptance we should all be "good" examples of fat people, by showing no desire whatsoever to relax and take it easy once in a while. When I relax I feel bad, so it must be bad, right?

That kind of thinking has the potential to lead to influential people within the FA movement imposing their own inner guilt and prejudices on others. Already many fat people are labeled "psychologically damaged" by being diagnosed with eating disorders. While people readily agree that the cause of eating disorders is our current system of unhealthy social influences, all too often the social system gets the attention while the people labeled with these problems are marginalized. Given that state of affairs, how much of a stretch is it to see a future where fat people who say "I eat because I want to" are automatically seen as having a problem with their mental state? How far are we from that perception today?

Everyone, fat or thin, is entitled to relax without feeling guilty, just as everyone, male or female, is entitled to a little guilt-free sexual excitement. Sure, we can all come up with examples of people who take it too far, but who gets to say how far is too far? Not "the movement." Not "great leaders" or major organizations. The only person in a position to judge someone’s mental state is a person directly involved.

I’m condemning anybody here. But discrimination within a movement is no better than discrimination outside a movement, and the attitudes of a movement come from the beliefs of its individual members. The whole point of fat acceptance is to do away with the concepts of "good" and "bad" fat people. We're looking for the acceptance of fat people as ordinary people who are free to be human. If that means some fat people are lazy (or lusty or whatever else), well, that's how they choose to be. Living that way is their right.

Your right.

Plug and Apologies

hrmn...it seems like there's a lot of apologies on this blog, considering the title :-)

At any rate, the current erratic posting schedule is due to my frantically attempting to get every last ounce of fun in outside before snow falls. I will be out for about two weeks hiking in the Smoky Mountains and then attending the festival at which I have to give the body acceptance talk (thanks for all the suggestions!). On my return I hope to be able to post more regularly.

In the meantime, I highly recommend a new blog that I'll be occasionally writing for, called Fatties United. It's spearheaded by my Tante' Terri, Uncle Bill, and their friends out in California. Tante's the one who turned the FA page in my life by sending me (out of nowhere) a stack of books and a link to something called NAAFA. I just cross-posted my Good Fattie post there per their request, but also hope to send some original material just to their blog.

Workshop Help!

So I've agreed to do a workshop in two weeks on basic body acceptance. I tried FA specifically as a topic, but was asked to broaden it (insert rimshot) to basically address how to accept and appreciate your body no matter what size it is.

Help! Where do I even start!?

If you were doing/hearing a workshop on body acceptance for the first time and had never read any kind of FA or HAES book...what would you want included? What would you want your friend/family member/daughter to hear on the topic as their first introduction?

The attendees will probably be a dozen or so adults (between 18 and 40) I know really well (for me it's always harder to speak to strangers I'll never see again...the distance helps my brain work better). They're close friends or family, including (eek!) my parents. Only a few of them have heard me rant on the subject. I know that there are at least two I expect to attend who are recovering from ED's, at least three current dieters, one struggling with long-term ill effects of WLS, and several who hate on their bodies on a regular basis. I expect them mostly to be women (except maybe JD if he's not doing his own workshop). They're strong but relatively open-minded on most subjects, primarily Pagan or Heathen, and will probably not give me too much heckle if I challenge their paradigms.

Last time this kind of topic came up I tried to convince a friend that it was a contradiction to be both accepting/proud of your body as an independent woman, and planning what plastic surgery and face/boob/butt lifts she wanted. The idea that the motivation to let yourself be cut open, sucked out and stitched back together came from external and semi-invisible pressures of society rather than the desire to be good to yourself took all night and into the next morning. But it did eventually get through.

So...any ideas on where to start? Basic concepts you think should be covered any time someone's doing a body acceptance workshop?

I'm heading off for the weekend, but I'll consider anything I find in the comments when I get back a real help :-)

The Good Fattie

This post was inspired by MezzoShiri’s post “Addicted to Life”

She brings up a theme that I’ve been struggling with myself, and have seen throughout the fatosphere as of late: The Myth of the Good Fattie.

One of these days someone will come up with a comprehensive “stages” list for Fat Acceptance, which a significant number of people pass through at some point or another on their path to body acceptance, although not everyone or in the same order.

One stage would be “ok for other people.” This means that you accept that other people could be happy with their bodies, but there’s something somehow radically unique about your own that makes it not an option for you.

Another would be the “Good Fattie” stage.

There is an idea that often crops up, if subconsciously, that somehow you have to “earn” fat acceptance by being as healthy as possible. If you exercise regularly and eat healthy and somehow escape disease or disability but remain fat, you are then relieved of an obligation to prove to people that it can be done. You can say, both to yourself and to others, “look, I do everything I’m supposed to. I’m fat and healthy. You can’t blame my lifestyle for my weight.”

But working hard, restricting your food and exercising while fat to justify your right to exist isn’t all that much different than doing all that to lose weight and justify your right to exist. They both start with the premise that you have to somehow earn your right to be a human being.

Don’t get me wrong here...if you’re active because you like to be active, or eat a certain way because that’s the food you like (or have religious or medical restrictions) then there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact there’s everything right about that because you’re doing it for yourself. But if you can’t afford fresh produce every day, or you work two jobs (yes parenting counts as at least one full time job) and literally have no energy for anything but a microwave dinner and sleep, or you damn well don’t like vegetables, hate to exercise, are physically unable to exercise, etc......there’s nothing wrong with that either. The life you live as a fat person does not somehow disqualify you from deserving to be happy.

To the point, a quote from MezzoShiri’s post:

“But as I’m trying to find my own voice in FA circles, I can feel the weight of internal pressure about how I’m not being a “good example” of Fat Acceptance, and I’m not being any sort of example for the idea of Health at Every Size. Talk about cognitive dissonance.”

The Good Fattie kind of thinking does create a division in FA. I’ve seen questions from the beginning of my involvement about how the “Death Fat” (i.e. “morbidly obese”) or fat and sick feel they’re marginalized. There’s this fear that sick fatties especially serve as an example that contradicts the message of FA. So in-between, currently abled fatties serve as “poster children” for the movement, while the rest wonder how they fit in.

Is there hidden vestiges of fat prejudice behind this? Maybe there’s a part of me that I haven’t managed to excise yet which still contains the internalized message that I have to toe a certain line in order to deserve to be accepted as a fat person. Maybe I’ve transformed that message into the idea that I would be somehow “letting down the team” if I didn’t exercise and eat a balanced diet whenever I could afford to do so; That I have some kind of responsibility to the FA movement to be as perfect a representative as possible.

Or is it simply anticipating the fat prejudice of others? It could be that I’m afraid of being diagnosed with diabetes or heart disease (I expect both will show up in my life like genetic clockwork) because if I am fat and have one of the stigmatized “fat diseases” it will somehow take away the authority of my message. After all, wouldn’t I then be walking justification for all the “booga-booga-obesity!” hysteria? How can I say fat doesn’t cause diabetes if I’m fat and have diabetes?

No, what I think is more likely is that the real issue is self-confidence. Despite all my efforts towards banishing the self-hate and accepting my body in its natural state, there is still a part of me that feels I somehow have to earn the right to be treated as a human being. I still have that small lurking voice that tells me that I can only afford to be fat if I am Acceptable Fat, and toe the line of an acceptable lifestyle.

Now the first problem with that is that it hurts me personally. It attaches my self-image to the judgement of others, which is never healthy. I have made a point this summer of working on banishing the Acceptable Fat dependency in myself. Maybe peeling away those layers is what let me recognize this particular thought nugget.

The other problem is that no matter what my motivation, the myth of the good fattie lets itself out. By asserting my right to exist based on the premise that I exercise and eat healthy, I marginalize those who cannot or choose to not do those things. They, and I, have an inherent right to exist that has nothing to do with lifestyle or privilege. By hanging my lifestyle choices out like a flag of defiance I accomplish nothing but alienation. So I absolutely apologise if the unconscious belief in the Good Fattie has coloured my voice and opinions.

If I do believe that fat is not the cause of a person’s state of health, and if I do believe that everyone has the right to dignity and respect as a human being regardless of size, then it should naturally extend that they have that right regardless of health as well. Health issues are stigmatized in this country because we somehow still hold onto the Calvinistic belief that health is earned or forfeit through good behaviour. Supporting human rights for people of all sizes and states of health is accepting the idea that my own state of health is a combination of genetics and luck. It’s a heady thing to give up that illusion of control, but perhaps if health issues weren’t as stigmatized as they are, the superstitious need to blame something (previously sin, currently fatness) would also diminish. Or vice-versa.

All I know is that I really do believe that size acceptance applies at every point of the spectrum of body size. Healthy choices are possible at every point as well, but health is not a reflection of morality, any more than thinness or wealth.

******

Addendum: April D poked this topic with a "big old stick of introspection" that really heaped on more for me to think about! I highly recommend it.

******

Speaking Up

We were at my best friend's house, helping her and her family build an art studio, when a turning point arrived for me. Normally her household is pretty FA friendly, consisting of strong, empathetic, straightforward sort of people. Some of their near relations, however? Not so much. Her husband's brother showed up to help with the art studio wearing a tee shirt that said:

"I eat pussy like a fat kid eats cake"

Now this being a guy who hung a giant pink neoprene ball sack from his pickup truck's trailer hitch, I'm pretty used to his wearing shirts with sexual jokes on them. Since he prides himself on not caring what anyone else thinks, I doubt he even paused to consider whether he should wear this particular shirt on a day when he could expect to be surrounded by up to five fat women wielding hammers and power tools.

It wasn't my house or brother, but despite the handicap of a strong personal hospitality ethic, I spoke up. I told him his shirt was "fucking rude and obnoxious." I called it nasty. It took him a minute into the conversation to figure out that I wasn't talking about the sexual reference. I said it bluntly, but without anger. He took it well (meaning he didn't get all pissy and defensive, but then he's pretty easygoing as far as I can tell). I didn't get into FA 101 with him because I think it would be too much a challenge to his paradigm, but hopefully something got through.

The point is not whether he got it, but that I spoke up. I am too often willing to let things go rather than risk a confrontation; especially when I don't know the person very well. There's many a times when I've walked away from a situation with the "I should've said...." lines running through my head. I've often regretted being passive when I had an opportunity to speak up.

I can't promise myself that I will absolutely never shy away from a confrontation concerning prejudice (of any kind), but right now, in this case, I'm pretty proud of speaking up.

Oh, and rough framing a building in the sun when it's 95 degrees celsius and close to 100% humidity is my new definition of hell.

SAAS (Sewing at Any Size): Basic Panties/Swimsuit Bottom

SAAS: Sewing at Any Size : Basic Panties or Swimsuit Bottom

This is my series on Sewing at Any Size, a protest against overpriced, badly constructed and badly-fitted clothing options available to anyone who isn’t shaped like a fit model.

You can see the rest of the SAAS series by clicking on the category link on the sidebar. As this will eventually become a book, please do not re-publish or re-post this material. Feel free to link to it however, or print/save for your own personal use.

Whether you’re plus size and sick of paying too much for badly-constructed underwear, or non-plus size and want to express your artistic side, the panty is the perfect place to start. We’ll start with the absolute basic panty shape, then play with alternatives (bikini, boy shorts, thong, etc.) in future posts.

The easiest way to create a pattern for panties without a single measurement is to sacrifice an existing pair. Pick apart the side seams and lay it flat. Trace it onto a piece of sturdy fabric or paper so that you have a permanent pattern for the future. You may then be able to stitch the panties back together if you’re really attached to them.

When choosing your fabric, your options are limitless as long as it’s stretch. You will also need a small piece of coordinating tee-shirt material (check the remnant bin) to sew into the crotch as a pantyliner. This is optional of course. If you’re making this into the bottom of a two-piece swimsuit, use lycra blend swimsuit material for the main piece and both the binding and liner. You can use other materials, of course, but they may not react well to continued soakings or hold the shape when wet. If you’re making a swimsuit out of non-traditional swimsuit material, test the effects of chlorine on the fabric by washing a scrap in bleach.

If you really, really want to start from scratch on the panties, start with measurements:

Measure around your hips where you want the waistband to be. Divide this number by two. We’ll call this measurement “A”.

Measure around your upper thigh right where it meets the leg. We’ll call this measurement “B”.

Decide how far above the top of the leg you want the waistband to be. For high waisted panties this will be a larger number, for low waisted it will be smaller. We’ll call this measurement “C”.

Decide how wide you want the crotch to be. This is a good time to measure an existing pair of panties! Divide the number by two. We’ll call this measurement “D”.


We’ll start by making a pattern out of scrap fabric. You can also use a piece of brown paper bag for this, since the test pattern will be relatively small. Since you want the shape of the panties to be symmetrical, start by folding your scrap fabric in half.

Trace the approximate shape below (red lines) with the dotted line on the fold of the fabric.


Now the reason why you’re using test fabric or paper is that this shape will not be perfect! Cut it out and unfold it. Try it on (holding the sides together at “C”). Remember that we don’t have any seam or hem allowances yet, so it should fit exactly. Adjust the shape as needed to fit the way you want. If it needs to be smaller or narrower, cut away until you like it. If it needs to be larger, approximate how much and cut a new piece from your test fabric (if you’re using paper you may just be able to cut pieces and tape them on to expand areas instead of cutting a whole new piece.)

Once you like the shape, you have a pattern! You can continue to construct a practice pair out of your test fabric by applying the following instructions (recommended), or jump straight to your final fabric.

Trace your pattern onto your fabric.

Add ¼” to each edge that had the measurement “C” (the ones that will become the sides.) Use a pencil, chalk, or water-soluble marking pen (you can get them from the craft or fabric store).

When you cut out the shape, include the ¼” seam allowance you just created. The lines to cut are in red dots in the figure below.


We’re going to use stretch binding to finish the panties. You can also use ½” wide lightweight elastic, folding it over the edge like regular binding. If the original fabric you used has a good firm stretch, you can use a piece of it as binding.

See this post for instructions on how to use binding!

Stretch fabric, elastic and binding are notoriously hard to work with on a sewing machine, especially when dealing with tiny measurements like these. You want to use something to stabilize the fabric while you work with it to keep it from getting sucked down under your foot plate and ruined.

The ideal stabilizer for this project is probably lightweight tissue paper. I don’t mean kleenex or TP, I mean the stuff you use in art class or stuff into the top of gift bags. This is available at craft stores and card stores, or you can save it from past gifts. Place it between the fabric and the footplate as you sew, then tear it out later. Remaining scraps should come out when you wash it, or you can pick it out fairly easily.

If you choose to use a panty liner, cut a piece of tee-shirt or other lightweight jersey the width of the crotch and approximately half the length. Hem the top and bottom ends, and sandwich the sides into the binding along with the fabric of the main panty.



Sew binding along the top and bottom edges of the panty, and along the curves that will be the leg holes (red dotted lines below). If you added a liner, make sure the binding captures both layers of fabric. Make sure you place a layer of tissue paper under the fabric as you sew.


Fold the panty up with the right side together (the side you want to show while wearing it). Stitch the sides together, leaving a ¼” seam allowance.



If the fabric you use doesn’t unravel or shred when it’s stretched, you can simple trim the seam to where you want it and be done. If it does, add a strip of zig-zag stitches to secure it (or overlock if you have it available). Trim the fabric back to the stitches.

At this point you have a very basic pair of finished panties or a swimsuit bottom. In future posts we’ll go into variations on cut, assembly and decoration.

Response to Comment

From Carmen's comment on yesterday's post:

Dear Unapologetically Fat:

I like you and have been watching your blog for a while. I consider it insightful and intelligent. I enjoy reading your personal perspectives, but think you are a little duplicitous. Certainly, you have the right to be militant about embracing your size and empowering others to embrace theirs, but in your zeal (defensiveness?) you seemingly ostracize all others. In my observation, you hold the position that if a person is not fat or secure in their fat, then they need to shut the hell up.

I think that is definitely a prejudice of a different nature. Why is it okay to be accepting of only yourself and others who tilt the scales and not those who think it's responsible to salvage their health by reducing? Not all heavy people are healthy, by the way. Does that mean that everyone who does not align their perspectives with your fat acceptance is evil? Just askin'.

PS: I fully expect you to either 1) delete this comment or 2) throw rotten verbal eggs at it.

I had too much to say to restrict it to a responding comment, so I decided to take the opportunity of having nothing else to write about today.

What I'm reading here is a classic response to any civil rights stand, in short: By asserting your right to be a human being, aren't you trying to limit my rights in the process?

It's very common when questioning the status quo of any form of prejudice to be accused of "reverse prejudice" in the process. It's why feminists are stereotyped as hating men, or civil rights leaders are accused of such nonsense as "reverse racism" or playing "race cards". (note, once again, I'm NOT playing the "my oppression is worse than your's!" game.) I've frequently seen accusations thrown at the FA community that we are somehow resentful towards thin people, or think they don't have a voice in body acceptance. The fact is that my asserting that I am a human being is a reflection of EVERYONE being a human being. I don't have to resent you in order to respect myself. That would actually be pretty counter-productive.

There's a reason why I generally don't specifically address body acceptance in terms thin people; it's because I have no experience whatsoever AS a thin person. This blog is all about my personal experience and perspective, and to try and fake the perspective of a thin person WOULD be duplicitous. I'm sorry if you personally feel left out, but (and this is important):

There is a big difference between expressing my personal voice and experience, and oppressing the voice and experience of others.

I cannot be all inclusive on this blog. I'm not a man, for instance. I regret that there aren't more men offering up their voices in FA, but there's nothing I can do about it. I'm currently abled and Cis-gendered, which means I can't speak from those experiences either, despite also hoping that those who can speak up.

Another point is that a lot of what I say DOES apply to anyone, regardless of weight. Body-image oppression against fat people IS body image oppression against thin people, young people, old people, male people, female people, etc. The hatred directed against fat affects or has potential to affect the confidence, health and body image of everyone exposed to it in any way. The very nature of Fat Acceptance is all inclusive.

I believe that everyone should be secure in their body...period. That means being secure and accepting of your weight no matter what that weight is. If your body is not inclined towards being fat, no amount of body confidence in the world will make you fat. If your body is not inclined towards being thin, no amount of body confidence (or, to that matter, dieting, surgery or willpower) will make you permanently thin.

The only people who I think need to shut the fuck up on this issue are people who want to force their ideas of healthy, fit, thin, pretty, etc. onto ME. The ones who think their opinion should have anything to do with how my body looks. That's the line between respecting your right to your opinion and adopting that opinion for my own.

Now while the first paragraph of your comment invites reasonable debate, the second is pretty trollish. I'm not going to spend nearly the time on it. Deliberately reducing your weight is NOT being responsible for your health; in fact more and more studies are showing that it is outright harmful to your health. Read the 101 section for more info, as I've gone over this many times. There are healthy and unhealthy fat people, healthy and unhealthy thin people. trying to become artificially thin is not "salvaging" anything, nor inversely is accepting your body somehow giving up on your health. Fat and Thin are not indicators of health, and only the pharmaceutical companies and Jenny Craig would have you think otherwise. This blog is about body acceptance. You cannot accept and respect your current body while seeking to change it. They are mutually exclusive states of mind. I blog about body acceptance because that is the path I'm on.

Having said that, if you feel like your body is unacceptable and you need to change it, that's your decision. Your body is none of my business. But the reverse of that is true as well. My body is none of your's. Or the CDC's. Or the Washington Post's. Or the random asshat driving by in a rusted pickup truck. The moment we go from copacetic and someone's opinion is their own is when they try to enforce THEIR opinion on MY body. Their right to an opinion ends where my body begins.

As far as thinking everyone whose opinion is different than mine is evil, that's a helluva stretch. I have strong opinions. I have a blog to express those opinions. You aren't forced to read them :-)

Fat Health Care Manifesto

Blaming fat people for the rising cost of health care is the moral equivelent of punching someone in the face, then suing them for the cost of dry cleaning when they happen to bleed on you.

Aside from all the malarky about blaming adipose tissue for everything from genetic disorders to hangnails, most of the rising cost is attributed to “treatment” of “obesity”.

And I say No.

I am putting my foot down.

I will NOT accept blame for the cost of eradicating me.

I will not accept blame for the side effects of ineffective drugs, crippling elective and uneccesary surgery, institutionalized shame and disordered eating that is forced upon me in the hopes of making me disappear.

I refuse to own the discomfort my body causes others.

I will not admit fault in this, this cultural purge of the two-thirds otherness that reminds them of the futility of their quest for immortality through better pharmaceuticals.

I refuse this particular bill. I plead not guilty, and reverse the charges. I am not to blame for their desire to make everyone look, act, eat and sicken alike.

Want to cut the cost of health care?

Give me back my body.

Let me live without your shame.

I promise you that the world will not end as a result. I promise that letting fat people be fat will NOT end in the conspicuous consumptive horror of Wall-E. I promise that once we accept that everyone will eventually sicken and die, we can free up immense resources for making everyone’s finite life more healthy and enjoyable.

And to those who believe that I should be responsible for paying their sick jollies in torturing the minds and bodies of generations with the fantasy carrot and starvation stick,

I say

Fuck You.

Today's Morale Boost

This article from the Baltimore Sun was a bit of a fresh breeze amongst the mass body-judgement on Dr. Regina Benjamin. I’m still in a hostile sort of shock that anyone feels justified in dismissing the credentials of such an exemplary doctor and humanitarian simply because of her body shape. While in that shock, wading through and skipping over the nonsense in search of a date for her confirmation hearing, this dose of common sense came as a sheer relief.

Authors Patrick Basham and John Luik pull no punches in calling crap by its real name. They challenge the assumption that fat=death on multiple fronts with strong evidence by way of recent studies, strip the illusion of overblown statistics, and highlight some of the underlying prejudice. My favorite is the comparison between the much-admired (thin) smoker in the White House, and the hate piled onto his appointee who simply dares to be fat in public. No one denies which is a more significant health risk (even the psychotically anti-fat like Meme), yet one figure draws national condemnation. Interesting that. You’d almost think it wasn’t really about health after all...

Oh...that’s right...it’s not.

THIS....

THIS.... says it better than I ever could.

Excerpt:

"I’ve been trained to view beauty as a rule that excludes me, a weapon
that anyone could use against me: we all have. But when we try to think
generously about beauty, to look for it with pleasure instead of with envy, it
only expands. Beauty is not a finite quantity. It has room for you. It has room
even for me." -Sweet Machine

You should read the whole post, though. It's amazing, perfect, and heart-aching. I'm only bothering to cross-post it because I have a few friends that don't read other fatosphere blogs, but really, truly need to read this. Don't read it anywhere it's inappropriate to cry.

Today's Morale Boost

This article from the Baltimore Sun was a bit of a fresh breeze amongst the mass body-judgement on Dr. Regina Benjamin. I’m still in a hostile sort of shock that anyone feels justified in dismissing the credentials of such an exemplary doctor and humanitarian simply because of her body shape. While in that shock, wading through and skipping over the nonsense in search of a date for her confirmation hearing, this dose of common sense came as a sheer relief.

Authors Patrick Basham and John Luik pull no punches in calling crap by its real name. They challenge the assumption that fat=death on multiple fronts with strong evidence by way of recent studies, strip the illusion of overblown statistics, and highlight some of the underlying prejudice. My favorite is the comparison between the much-admired (thin) smoker in the White House, and the hate piled onto his appointee who simply dares to be fat in public. No one denies which is a more significant health risk (even the psychotically anti-fat like Meme), yet one figure draws national condemnation. Interesting that. You’d almost think it wasn’t really about health after all...

Oh...that’s right...it’s not.

Intuitive Eating "DuH" moment

I'm not a big milk fan. I actually can't stand the taste. I say this, because when I found myself craving a tall frosty glass of milk the other day, it was a serious WTF moment for me. Suddenly I realized that I've been ignoring my body's signals all week. Every day this week I've been craving ice cream, to the point where even the "faux-milk" ice cream at McDonald's was super tasty. I've been packing cheese sandwiches every day in my lunch, and even wanted one so badly some mornings that I made them for breakfast, too. I would eat bowls of cereal and drink the milk afterwards, and it would actually taste really, really good. But when that glass of plain milk popped into my head as an object of desire, I had to do a palm-to-forehead. I started taking calcium supplements.

Today? no dairy crave. A cheese sandwich actually sounds kinda gross today, for all it was so delicious yesterday.

Sure, in hindsight I should know that cravings, at least for me, generally mean something's missing. Especially if I crave something I'm not normally fond of. A few months ago I stopped taking Fish Oil supplements (for the simple reason of having run out and not being able to afford more until the next paycheck), and it took me a week to connect the sudden and highly unusual craving for fish (I normally HATE fish; even the smell makes me nauseous) with the fact that I had suddenly cut off my main source of Omega-3.

I suppose the goal is to get to a varied enough diet where the deficiency of something doesn't get bad enough to become an actual craving. After you're over the shock of being able to eat as much of anything you want, the body's signals become more subtle. Then again, there's many times I'm not specifically hungry "for" something, just hungry. Other times the budget and presence of leftovers have to overrule the craving, because it's not a perfect world and I can't always afford fresh basil and Kalamata olives.

(mmmm...pesto.)

At any rate, this is something of a Friday ramble, but I suppose my point is that Intuitive Eating is not a perfect or rigid process with set rules for everyone; It yields to the circumstances of each individual. If you're allergic to something you're craving, obviously you're not "cheating" or "breaking the rules" by not eating it. Like most holistic concepts, IE takes your whole self, budget, body, religious restrictions and all, into account. It's about being good to yourself, but going into debt or giving up other hobbies just to treat yourself with expensive foods isn't being good to yourself. Stressing out over what you "should" be eating isn't being good to yourself. Your life should not revolve around food, unless you're a professional chef. Even then you should have some hobbies that aren't food. If you work too hard at "following the rules" of Intuitive Eating, you might as well be back on a diet.

don't get me wrong, if I have a serious, persistent craving I can assume it's for a reason and try to find something within my means to solve it. If I'm really craving massive quantities of fresh spinach for several days, I might be able to make do with frozen broccoli or some other, cheaper iron-rich green that happens to be in the house already. If I just casually feel like steak one day, then whether or not I could have it would depend on the budget, the time, my energy levels, and whether or not something was already prepared.

Come to think of it, I don't eat a lot of meat, so if I was craving steak I'd probably consider it a sign that I needed iron or protein.

Just sayin :-)

Obama doesn't flinch

I'm not going to re-cap much of the issue surrounding the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. last week. Not after they covered it so absolutely perfectly on Shapely Prose yesterday.

What I will say is bravo to Obama for not flinching when it came up in a news conference. He's quoted by ABC news as stating:

"I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there's a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That's just a fact."

No Kidding! The string of "if he had not gotten angry it wouldn't have happened" or "if he had just cooperated it wouldn't have happened" on news coverage of the incident tweak me, because:

1. If he had been rich and white it wouldn't have happened, it would have been "sir is this your home? So sorry to bother you" instead of the presumption that a black man in a nice home is automatically a criminal.

2. As Kate already put it as succinctly as possible at SP: Being rude is not a crime. One resident of Cambridge said in a comment yesterday that "Disorderly Conduct" was better known there as "Contempt of Cop". I'm sorry, but this man was on his own property, being treated like crap, after a many-hour flight from China. In his position, yeah, I'd feel violated and invaded! I'd be getting pissy at a cop with an attitude that said I had to justify my presence in my own home. Once the ID came out that proved he lived there, the response should have been an apology and the police getting the hell out of the man's house! It's THEIR JOB to put up with rude people without getting personal. I have a similar job duty, and while sometimes I have to quietly curse someone out who's being a complete asshat and calling me "honey" and telling me I don't know my job, I do it AFTER I hang up the phone. Because MY JOB is to be calm and polite to everyone who calls, even if they're belligerent. I get PAID to back down when I want to stand up for myself and my dignity to some petty asshole. So do they. This is a clear abuse of power by the police, which could have been solved by them simply driving away and bitching about that "crazy old professor" later over coffee. Instead, the response was clearly unprofessional, out of bounds, and to anyone who's aware of sociology, racially motivated.

But BRAVO to Obama for not flinching at calling it what it is. I know that this will just cause more grumbling by privileged white people that Obama is somehow backing Gates because he's black. I know that it'll tweak me and make me want to jump through the screen to rub the Invisible Knapsack in their faces. If Obama stands behind Gates, it may be that he GETS it, and isn't afraid to point it out because it might make his over-privileged colleagues uncomfortable.

Marianne from Cali commented on the SP post with this fantastic quote by Sharpton:

"Before we can even talk about the Race Card, we need to make sure everyone is playing with the same deck"

By the way, I love Prof. Gates's interview in the Boston Globe where he offered, in exchange for an apology from the cop, free lessons:

“I believe the police officer should apologize to me for what he knows he did that was wrong,’’ Gates said Tuesday. “If he apologizes sincerely, I am willing to forgive him. And if he admits his error, I am willing to educate him about the history of racism in America and the issue of racial profiling. “That’s what I do for a living,’’ he added."

Personally, I'd jump at the chance. Free lecture from Henry Louis Gates!? Without paying Harvard tuition!? What kind of idiot would pass that up?

Dr. Regina Benjamin and Fat Hate

With everything going on in the world right now, you’d think there’d be something better for the media to cover than the Surgeon General’s cheeks.

ABC “news” features this article devoted solely to whether an overweight doctor could possibly be qualified to give medical advice, regardless of a list of academic and professional credentials longer than most of her critics’ arms. Whatever you do, don’t read the comments. I don’t care how many Sanity Watcher’s points you have left.

On the first page, we have this particular gem:

“The nominee didn't return calls from ABCNews.com, so there is no information about how much she weighs or her eating and exercise habits.”

Think about it. That means that a nominally creditable news agency actually called up the surgeon general nominee for the sake of asking her how much she weighs. Seriously? This is responsible journalism? This is anyone’s business?

Get past the first page though, and you get to a rather large collection of doctors and professionals who think her weight has nothing to do with her ability to practice or advocate for medicine. Considering the bulk of the article actually leans towards this view, the subtitle on page one, “Leading Experts Say Dr. Benjamin, Though Stellar Nominee, Gives Wrong Message” makes even less sense.

It isn’t until the third page that a very pertinent issue arises. The article references Dr. Susan Love as saying that “Benjamin was attacked because she was a woman, reminding that the former surgeon general C. Everett Koop was ‘no string bean.’”

No Kidding!

Actually, going through the list of Surgeon Generals in the last decades, very few of them have been what the current critics would consider thin. There have been several men and women of color. What stands out most to me as a pattern is that Dr. Benjamin will be the first non-military appointee (other than Edward Brandt, who was acting SG from 1981-1982). I mean the first EVER non-military appointee. John Maynard Woodworth in 1871 was the only other SG to not hold at least Admiral rank in a military branch (he was SG for the Union army.) It sort of slipped through the cracks, but while this isn’t our first SG who’s a woman of color, it is our first civilian from private practice, which I think is pretty significant!

Back to the subject, while Dr. Benjamin isn’t the first woman to serve as Surgeon General, I do think her weight is drawing more attention than it would if she were a man. I believe this very deeply, and it would take a lot to convince me otherwise. Women are held to a more rigid standard of appearance than men, especially professional women.

But more importantly, this media circus marks an ominous upswing in the “obesity” panic. Think about it. If the confirmation panel is swayed by media opinion, we may yet see the first fully qualified government appointee denied a position solely due to their weight.

Think on that moment. It will mark the moment when being thin becomes more important than being qualified, and it will send that message to the nation and the world. It will tell every struggling self-conscious teenager that it is more important for them to work out than study. It will tell them that it is more important to starve themselves than to be a good and decent human being. It will tell them that their career advancement may be checked not by their ability or hard work, but by the shape of their body.

Now THAT would be a terrible message to send.

Obama names Surgeon General

Obama has named Alabama family doctor Dr. Regina Benjamin for Surgeon General.

This is a long-awaited-with-baited-breath for those of us who have been anticipating a fight against the obesity scare and its various trumped-up statistics. Dr. Benjamin is a family doctor from a high-poverty region of Alabama that was hard-hit by Katrina. It will be a HUGELY positive step if she can serve as an advocate for the most overlooked and underrepresented "interested parties" in the health care debate. It seems like the first thing on the chopping block when the budget gets tight is health care for the poor. Michigan, for example, has cut both dental and vision services to adults on public assistance for this fiscal year, and is talking about eliminating them altogether. There's some kind of freakish cognitive dissonance going on when the government cuts services when they're most in demand. It will be very interesting to see what happens when they have someone in a powerful position that has seen, first-hand, how health and poverty interact.

She's been awarded the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights (1998) and was the first person under 40 to be appointed to the board of the AMA (as well as the first black woman!). She's an activist, an environmentalist, and a humanitarian by all accounts. She's a supporter of reproductive rights for women (despite being Catholic) and has reportedly worked to encourage medical schools to include abortion training that helps new doctors understand all the ramifications of the surgery.

Link to her clinic

Of course, news agencies are already stirring up a whirlwind of objections. Not to her medical experience, knowledge, or practice.....but to the fact that she's fat. Actually she's what the fatosphere would call an "in-between", meaning that she looks pretty average, but reporters inudated with the body dysmorphia of celebrities assume she's about to drop dead of a heart attack. Depending, of course, on which photo you're looking at. Isn't it funny how you can't really tell how much someone weighs by looking at them? Doesn't stop them from guessing...badly.

Somehow, of course, a fat surgeon general (or rock star, or politician, or actress) will somehow magically make everyone else in the country fat. Of course that's what they say they mean. What they might actually mean could be more along the lines of "how dare this fat chick be successful, powerful and visible!?"

Just as Sotomayor has been attacked for not apologising for her strong Latina-ness, Benjamin will be attacked if she doesn't apologise for how her body is shaped. She's already being attacked for being black; the comment streams on some articles are complaining that her appointment is due to her race instead of her qualifications. Come to think of it, Sotomayor had to deal with some douchehound reporters commenting on the relative weight of the canditates instead of their qualifications as well. Paul Campos's response was my particular favorite:

"For some men, the only thing more intolerable than the sight of a powerful woman is the sight of a powerful woman they don’t want to sleep with." - Paul Campos

Her position on obesity isn't readily found, which means it's probably not her
top priority. Smoking definitely is, however, since she's lost at least one
family member to it. HIV prevention is another possible point of emphasis because another family member died of aids-related illness. She mentions that her father died of "diabetes and hypertension," which since those conditions are so often blamed on fat (rather than genetics, inactivity, poor diet and weight-cycling) raises a red flag for me that she might make the obesity panic (ooga booga!) worse. The flag waves a little harder when she refers to them as "preventable diseases," since "prevention" usually focuses on (ineffective and short term) weight loss.

Having an advocate for the poor, a pro-choice doctor, an environmentalist, a woman willing to re-build a clinic twice destroyed in order to bring health care to a small town in need, a woman who understands the disparity of medical access not only between the rich and poor, but the urban and rural, a strong WOC, in this highly visible position is going to be hugely positive for this country. She'd have to hate on fat pretty severely for me to admire her any less.

SAAS (Sewing at Any Size): Shorten your jeans without looking like you have

Welcome to my Series on Sewing at Any Size. You can access the rest of the SAAS series by clicking on the topic link on the side bar.

The series is a form of peaceful protest against the terrible, cheap, overpriced, ugly stuff that passes for plus size fashion these days. Anyone can make basic wardrobe elements to fit their body without trying to track down commercial patterns (a nightmare for anyone over a US size 24).


As this may eventually become a book, please do not reprint or republish this anywhere else. You may, of course print for your own personal use!


How to Hem Jeans (without looking like you've hemmed your jeans!)


Scenario: The jeans fit perfectly, but are too long. Unless you have a machine that can go through four layers of heavy denim for a proper french cuff, you’ll be stuck with the dreaded “I can’t find clothes that fit me” look of a homemade hem.

Solution: You can hide the shortening seam right above the original cuff for a store-bought look.
Measure the length of the leg, then determine how long you want the leg to be. Subtract the latter from the former and divide by two.

For instance, if I have a 34” long pair of jeans and need it to be 30”, I subtract 30 from 34 and divide by two for a total of 2”.

We’ll call this number “A”.

Fold the bottom hem of the leg up with the right side together until there are “A” inches showing between the inside edge of the original hem and the fold.






Pin up, measuring every time to prevent the hem from becoming uneven. Stitch as close as possible to the bottom of the original hem line; the stitches should be almost right on top of each other if possible (Red dashed line below).




Right next to this line of stitches, run another line of zig-zag (/\/\/\/\/\/\) or overlock (____) stitches to prevent the denim from fraying.




Cut off the folded denim close to the zig-zag or overlock stitches, being careful not to cut the stitches themselves.





Fold the original hem back down over the stitches and iron flat.

SAAS (Sewing at Any Size): Sleeved Tee

Welcome to my Series on Sewing at Any Size. You can access the rest of the SAAS series by clicking on the topic link on the side bar.

The series is a form of peaceful protest against the terrible, cheap, overpriced, ugly stuff that passes for plus size fashion these days. Anyone can make basic wardrobe elements to fit their body without trying to track down commercial patterns (a nightmare for anyone over a US size 24).

As this may eventually become a book, please do not reprint or republish this anywhere else. You may, of course print for your own personal use!

SLEEVED TEE

This basic pattern is assuming you’re using fabric with high lycra or spandex content, or knit fabrics with a lot of stretch but that spring back into shape well after stretching. Stretch fabrics are trickier to work with, so get a little extra to practice your stitches. See the Fabric section in Part 1 for tips on working with stretch fabric.

This is an excellent candidate for using test fabric (such as cheap fabric or old bedsheets) and making a practice copy before jumping into the real thing. Shoulder width, arm width, sleeve length etc. are all tricky things to fit individually and you'll want to do trial and error on fabric you don't mind throwing away if something comes out too small.

Also, if you made the Cami top or variations on it from this series, you already have the measurements for the body, and could even use your test fabric pieces from that to construct the body of the shirt.

First we are going to make some adjustments to measurements. I’ll give instructions based on a scoop neckline, but you can substitute other necklines if you'd like. Eventually I'll get around to posting some, but until then there's google!

· Decide where you want the neckline to be on your chest. This will be “Point A”. Either mark it on your skin somehow or remember where it is.

· Divide your chest circumference by 4 and add ½”. We’ll call this measurement “B”.

· Divide your Bust circumference by 4 and add ½”. We’ll call this measurement “C”.

· Divide your Waist circumference by 4 and add ½” We’ll call this measurement “D”.

· Divide your Hip circumference by 4 and add ½” We’ll call this measurement “E”.

· Measure the distance between “A” and “B” and add ½”. We’ll call this measurement “F”.

· Measure the distance between “B” and “C”. We’ll call this number “G”.

· Length from Bust to Waist: We’ll call this number “H”.

· Add ½” to your Length from Waist to Hips. We’ll call this number “I”.

· Measure the distrance between “B” and the top of the shoulder. Add ½” and we’ll call this number “J”

These measurements are assuming you’re using stretch fabric and want it to be fitted. If you’re using non-stretch fabric add an additional 1” to 2” to measurements B, C, D, and E. This will give you what’s called “ease”, otherwise known as “can actually move while wearing”. You may want to make your test garment with up to 2” ease on each of the four pieces, then cut it down to fit comfortably once you try it on. It will help to write all these numbers down.

Fold your test fabric in half so that the stretchiest part is running horizontally. Sketch out the following shape to the measurements you wrote down earlier. (Trace and cut on the bold red lines. Approximate the general shape; doesn’t have to be exact)

Cut out two copies of the shape you’ve traced. Because you’ve cut it on the fold you should now have two symmetrical pieces for the front and back of the shirt. Unfold them and lay them together with the right side (the side you want showing when you wear them) together.

Line up the corners and pin the sides together. Stitch the sides from “B” down to “E” (per red dotted lines below). Then stitch along each shoulder. If you’re using test fabric or you’re not sure of the fit, use basting stitches (long, loose stitches) so that you can rip them out later if needed.

Slip it on and check it for fit, adjusting as needed.

Now we’re going to construct sleeves. We’re assuming long sleeves, but to make them shorter simple adjust the length.

Sleeves have a rounded end that allows them to fit over the shoulder without bunching under the arm.

We’re going to use the following measurments:

Upper Arm circumference (where it joins shoulder, arm down at side), plus 1” (we’ll call this number “K” )

Middle arm circumference: (bicep) plus ½” (we’ll call this number “L”)

Arm length (Shoulder to wrist, arm relaxed at side) (we’ll call this number “M”)

The basic shape for a long sleeve is this:

If you’re working with a commercial pattern you’ll have a set shape to cut out, but if not then you’ll have to do some trial and error to make the sleeve fit the shirt. The rounded end should match up with the edge of the armhole on the shirt, plus 1” for a seam allowance.

My favorite method to find the right fit is to fold the right side of the fabric together, in half at line “M” in the drawing above. Lay the shirt as constructed so far flat on the table. Line the fold up with the seam at the top and use pins or basting stitches to attach the sleeve to the sleeve opening, using a ½” seam allowance on both sides. When you reach the side seam of the shirt, mark both pieces of the the sleeve fabric with a pencil or chalk where they will meet.

Unpin the sleeve fabric and lay it flat but still folded so that the marks are visible. Draw a line ½” below the mark, down the end of the sleeve. Cut along this line.

Draw another line at the mark itself. Stitch down this line to sew the sleeve into a tube.
Re-pin the sleeve back onto the shirt, lining up the sleeve seam and the side seam of the shirt. Use a basting stitch to attach the sleeve and check it for fit. Once you’ve adjusted it, stitch over the basting stitches, then remove the basting stitches.

Finish the sleeve with either a rolled hem (fold up 1/4" then again 1/4" to tuck the raw edge under, then stitch) or french hem at the cuff. A french hem means you'll have to add an additional inch onto the original sleeve length. Essentially you fold the hem under (to the wrong/seam side of fabric) 1 inch, then back over the top (right side of fabric) 1/2". This creates four layers of fabric but gives you a visible cuff.

Finish the bottom edge of the shirt with a rolled hem.

Finish the neckline with a rolled hem

SAAS (Sewing at Any Size): Cami Variations

Welcome to my Series on Sewing at Any Size. You can access the rest of the SAAS series by clicking on the topic link on the side bar.

The series is a form of peaceful protest against the terrible, cheap, overpriced, ugly stuff that passes for plus size fashion these days. Anyone can make basic wardrobe elements to fit their body without trying to track down commercial patterns (a nightmare for anyone over a US size 24).

As this may eventually become a book, please do not reprint or republish this anywhere else. You may, of course print for your own personal use!

First a quick response to a commenter who asked about purchasing fabric online; I'd highly recommend that at first you use fabric from the store. Once you have made a study of what different fabric types feel and work like, then you can venture online. Personally I still buy everything in person, on a "I'll know it when I see and feel it" basis for selection. The same material can feel radically different as fabric depending on weave and thickness. The only fabrics I've bought online have been linen, broadcloth and quilting cotton since they're generally the same textures and weights across the board. For blend fabrics you'll want to go by feel. If you'd like, make notes on how various compositions hang. Some stores might even send you a "sample book" of scraps for a small charge. Dharma Trading, for example, will send you small squares of every kind of silk or cotton they offer for a small fee plus shipping (and you really learn how different the same composition fabric can feel when you're looking at pieces, all 100% silk, with textures ranging from gauze to burlap.)

PART 2: The Cami Top; Variations on a Theme

Starting with the basic cami design from the last post, you can do a lot of variations to add interest to the design.

Scoop Neck:

The easiest variation is to make the straight neck into a scoop neck. Adjust the original pattern as follows, adding a curve from the point of the shoulder to point A where you’d like the neckline to fall in the center.

Lace:
The next easiest variation is to add a strip of lace either at the neckline, hem, or both. This is, of course, easier with a straight-neckline cami than a scoopneck. Add ½” to measurement “F”. Instead of binding across the top, simply fold over ¼” , then fold again to tuck the raw edge under. Stitch in place. Take the strip of lace and sew the bottom ¼” onto the wrong side (the side showing the seams) all the way across. When you add the binding, sandwich the edges of the lace along with the fabric for a tailored look.

You can add lace to the bottom hem as well. Before you sew up the sides, fold up the bottom hem of each the front and back pieces by ¼”, then fold again to tuck the raw edge under. Sew the top ¼” of lace onto the wrong side of this hem (the side that shows the seams). Stitch up the sides as usual, then trim the extra lace at the side seam to ¼”.

Remember to include the width of the lace in measurements “F” and “I” when cutting the fabric.


Gathered Neckline:
This adds a bit of ruffle to the neckline without...you know...ruffles (shudder). Construct the original Cami pattern, adding 2” to measurement “F”. Get to where you’ve sewn up the sides but haven’t added any binding.

Next, hem the armholes instead of binding them: fold the fabric to the wrong side (the side showing the seams) by ¼”. Fold again to tuck the raw edge under, then stitch to secure.

Next, still working with the wrong side of the fabric, fold the top 2” of the front half over and stitch along the edge to create a long pocket. Repeat on the back half.

Make a long strip of binding per the instructions in this post, and stitch closed so that you have a long strap. Feed it through both the front and the back pockets (use a safety pin to feed it through, it’s much easier!). Try the cami on with the straps, and adjust their length until the strap on each side hangs evenly on the shoulders and the top hangs where you like it. You’ll be bunching it up a bit on the strap, so keep that in mind. Make sure the seam on the strap is hidden in either the front or back pocket.

With the cami on inside-out, push the fabric together to bunch up on the loops. Decide for yourself how much or little you’d like it to bunch. You may want it to bunch tightly to resemble a halter top, or just let it hang loosely across the front. Once it hangs how you’d like, pin it into place. Take it off and put a few stitches along the pocket every few inches to hold the gathers evenly in place.

Sleeveless Tee: I hate tee shirts, but love the slogans and artwork on a lot of them. Re-print sites like Cafe Press often have a men’s tee as their only plus size offering, when that funny quote would look so awesome on a plus size tank top....

One option for funny sayings is to make your own silk-screens, which I’ve done. The other is to chop that tee down to a tank. If you want to use binding, get about ½ yard of tee-shirt fabric from the fabric store, or (if cheaper) a tee shirt of the right color from Goodwill or garage sale to chop up.

Step one is to turn the shirt inside out and cut off the sleeves and neckband. If you’re starting with a tee that fits you well along the sides, you can simple hem the sleeves and neckline and have a wide-shouldered tank top. If you’re starting with a too large shirt or would like spaghetti straps, carefully lay the shirt (still inside-out) flat, then fold exactly in half. On the fold, trace out the standard pattern: Continue to construct the Cami per the original instructions.

Narfum, Narfus, Narfae, Narfi......

Randomness.

JD (out of nowhere, finishing a conversation in his head): I think it would be quod coitum.
Me: What?
JD: "What the fuck" in Latin.
Me: I wonder if I can get that on a bumper sticker?
JD: Of course I'm assuming "the fuck" acts as a noun in the sentence, hence coitum instead of coitus. I wonder if it maintains gender.
Me: I wonder what some of our friends would say if they knew we were lying around conjugating sex in Latin.
JD: Actually they'd be pretty shocked. Since it's being used as a noun I'm technically 'declining' sex in Latin.


Yeah....he can pun in programming languages too. How delicious is that!? Yeah, W, I can see you shaking your head all the way down here in Kzoo.

And for those who feel inclined (or declined) to jump for Wheelock's looking for the right answer, he's way ahead of you. It's "qui coetus". Or in normal use, "Qui COETUS!?"

And I still want it on a bumper sticker. Or maybe a tee shirt.

Body Awareness: Resentment and Reconnection

As an extension to my post on reconnecting to my body last week, I’d like to talk about resentment. I’ve seen a few posts on other blogs about how we’re used to treating our bodies as liabilities instead of assets. When I used to (and occasionally still do) go clothes shopping and find nothing cute that fits me, I resented my large body for not fitting into those clothes that only went up to a size 22. Because “obviously” it was somehow my body’s fault, rather than the clothing line designers’. As I consciously work to reconnect with my body I’ve noticed other, less obvious signs that I fail to fully appreciate it. For instance I push myself too hard on too little sleep, then get frustrated and angry (even guilty) when I literally make myself sick with exhaustion and have to “waste” an evening in sleep. When I have a project, or are on a walk/ride/hike, I often don’t notice my body’s signals that it’s tired until it forces me to acknowledge it through pain (and then have to limp back over all that distance I covered!). Boy do I grouch at my thighs/back/feet/whatever the next day when they’re too sore to go full blast again!

I resent my body then. I feel like it’s let me down, and I get frustrated when the grand plans in my head cannot be realized because of my all too human limitations.

Part of this is wrapped up in the morality of thinness, which I’m still shaking off. After all we’re familiar enough with the concept of “feel the burn!” and the need to, when you’ve reached your physical limit and your body is screaming, to do “just three more!”. Exercise, we’re told, is supposed to push your body’s limits, punish it for fatness or inability, burn away bits and pieces until it becomes invisible in a crowd. The diet mentality sets up the body as an enemy to be conquered, brought under submission to the mind and its’ desires. But with the body and mind as enemies, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Sometimes literally if the legs or back are sore enough from yesterday’s workout.

I think that one of the next steps for me in body acceptance might be finding a new level of respect for my body as part of or partner in my life. My mind is just going to have to pace itself, because it’s not like it can go anywhere on it’s own. Maybe I’m curious to see what’s around the next bend on the trail, but if my body is already tired and it means I’ll have to run to get back to work on time, then I need to respect that my mind may be going places my body can’t follow. Maybe I love the clothes I can’t fit into, but my body is not to blame if clothing designers decide to ignore half their market. I need to appropriately channel my frustration into making them aware of their oversight. Maybe I like a clean house, or a perfect yard, but if my body really needs extra sleep or unwinding or time with JD, then going to bed early really is more responsible then getting the laundry done or the garden weeded.

It reminds me of when I first started Intuitive Eating. The first reaction, of course, was to eat all the things I was forbidden while dieting, and in great quantities. This temporary over-adjustment was to teach my brain and body that I really could have anything I felt like eating, anytime, and in any amount. Once the novelty wore off I found myself eating a pretty varied and balanced diet, still based on my body’s signals of what and how much. A happy medium was found, at least when it came to food.

In a similar way, one of my first giant leaps in FA was finding out that my body could do all kinds of physical things I assumed it couldn’t. Suddenly I want to run, build houses, canoe rivers, swim lakes, climb mountains, and make up for all the time I spent convinced that fat people couldn’t. Of course I’m not saying I’m not still occasionally going to ask my body for that extra mile, but instead of punishing it with resentment when it hurts the next day, I can reward it with the R&R it’s asking for through aching muscles. I’ve explored a lot of options, and while there’s still a feeling that I have to somehow make up for lost time, I think it’s finally time to find that happy balance between mind and body that I was looking for in the first place.

SAAS (Sewing at Any Size): Basic Camisole Top

Welcome to my Series on Sewing at Any Size. You can access the rest of the SAAS series by clicking on the topic link on the side bar.


The series is a form of peaceful protest against the terrible, cheap, overpriced, ugly stuff that passes for plus size fashion these days. Anyone can make basic wardrobe elements to fit their body without trying to track down commercial patterns (a nightmare for anyone over a US size 24).


As this may eventually become a book, please do not reprint or republish this anywhere else. You may, of course print for your own personal use!


Note that I'm not ignoring requests in comments. I'll get around to most of them as I have time to figure out answers. In the meantime I'm still running with what I already know!

BASIC CAMISOLE TOP

And now we venture into curves! This basic cami top will be the first in the SAAS series where we will be using more than just straight lines. As in the super-fab retro halter in the last entry, this could be make easily into the top for a swimsuit by constructing with lycra and adding a ready-made bra insert available in some sewing stores and online. As requested I will be doing an entry on swimsuits.

While cami’s are one of the few basics still available in most colors, I find that my biggest problem is finding the right length (I’ve ranted before about having a longer waist. Regular cut shirts are cut to look like belly shirts on me).

You’ll need stretchy fabric on this one. Look for high lycra or spandex content, or knit fabrics with a lot of stretch but that spring back into shape well after stretching. Stretch fabrics are trickier to work with, so get a little extra to practice your stitches. You can still use a straight stitch with the fabric pulled slightly tight (practice to get this without puckering) or you can use a zig-zag or stretch stitch on your sewing machine.

This is a very basic straight-front spaghetti strap camisole or tank top. As a part two (variations on a theme), I’ll show to make camis with scooped necklines, gathered necklines, gathered fronts, lace insets and how to turn that favorite tee shirt into any of these.

You’ll need a few measurements: This pattern assumes stretch fabric so it doesn't include any "ease" or fit-room. Measure with the tape close but not tight.

· Decide where you want the neckline to be on your chest. This will be “Point A”. Either mark it on your skin somehow or remember where it is.

· Run a measuring tape around right under your armpits. Divide this number by 4 and add 1”. We’ll call this measurement “B”.

· Run the measuring tape around the largest part of the chest. Divide this number by 4 and add 1”. We’ll call this measurement “C”.

· Measure your waist (where you normally wear the waistband of clothes) . Divide this number by 4 and add 1”. We’ll call this measurement “D”.

· Decide where you want the hem to fall and measure around your body at that point. Divide this number by 4 and add 1”. We’ll call this measurement “E”.

· Measure the distance between “A” and “B” . We’ll call this measurement “F”.

· Measure the distance between “B” and “C”. We’ll call this number “G”.

· Measure the distance between “C” and “D”. We’ll call this number “H”.

· Measure the distance between “D” and “E” and add ½”. We’ll call this number “I”.

These measurements are assuming you’re using stretch fabric and want it to be fitted. If you’re using non-stretch fabric (as for a silk camisole, etc.) add an additional ½” to measurements B, C, D, and E. This will give you what’s called “ease”, otherwise known as “can actually move while wearing”. You may want to make your test garment with up to 2” ease on each of the four pieces, then cut it down to fit comfortably once you try it on. It will help to write all these numbers down.

Take your test fabric (you are using cheap and ugly test fabric to experiment on before sewing on your expensive stuff right? Knits are a PITA to rip stitches out of later). Fold the fabric in half so that the stretchiest part is running horizontally. Sketch out the following shape to the measurements you wrote down earlier. (Trace and cut on the bold red lines. Approximate the general shape; doesn’t have to be exact)

Cut out two copies of the shape you’ve traced. Because you’ve cut it on the fold you should now have two symmetrical pieces for the front and back of the tank. Unfold them and lay them together with the right side (the side you want showing when you wear them) together. Line up the corners and pin together. Stitch the sides from “B” down to “E” (per red dotted lines below). If you’re using test fabric or you’re not sure of the fit, use basting stitches (long, loose stitches) so that you can rip them out later if needed.


Slip it on and check it for fit, adjusting as needed.

We’ll be using Binding again for this top. See the entry on making a 70’s style halter top for instructions on how to make the binding. You can use the same or different color fabric for the binding, but make sure it has at least the same amount of stretch as the fabric for the top. It can have more, but less stretchy binding can affect the fit. Experiment at your own leisure though!

Sandwich a strip of binding across the flat edge at the top of the front layer of the cami, then another across the top of the back layer. Trim each so that the binding goes right to the edge on the sides. Determine how long you want the shoulder straps to be in order for the cami to hang where you took your original measurements. Remember that the straps will go all the way around to the side seam (“B”). Add ½” to this measurement. (You can try pinning the strap and trying it on to make sure it’s the right length).

Lay each strip of armhole binding open and create a loop with the folded edge on the outside. Stitch the two ends together ¼” from the edge (red line in figure below).
Turn the loop back right-side out. Line the seam of the loop up with the seam on the side of the cami (at the outside edge “B”). It helps to pin it in place first. Following the sleeve hole on the front, sandwich the binding over the raw edge of the cami up to the neckline, overlapping the edge of the binding across the front neckline. Repeat at the back. When you get to the top of the garment continue stitching the binding closed all the way up and over the shoulder (red line).
Now hem the bottom edge by folding ¼” of fabric up, then folding again to tuck the raw edge under. Iron the fold, pin to make sure it lays flat, then stitch.


That's it! By the way, save your pattern pieces made from the scrap fabric (I put them in labeled plastic baggies). This basic shape is the building block for almost any top you make, so you'll benefit from having a piece already cut to your body shape.