Short Skirt/Long Jacket (or, Long Top Tube/Short Seat Tube)

The title of this post describes my fitting needs in terms of clothes and bikes.

I started a Pattern Drafting class on Monday night at the NH Academy of Sewing. Who knew there was a NH Academy of Sewing? I certainly never did, despite living not terribly far from said Academy for approximately 20 years, but thanks to the Internet I found it.

I was jealous of the blogging sewing people who were taking pattern drafting classes and draping classes and being all Project Runway, while I was stuck trying to redraft patterns myself with no real clue as to how to do it. I have a shit ton of patterns (all vintage) that I want to sew, but each and every one needs to be redrafted to fit me. The reason I started sewing was because I could no longer buy any clothes that fit (this was not a problem when I was in college in the late 90’s. Back the I could walk into Gap or Old Navy and buy a pair of pants/skirt/dress/top off the rack and they would fit. Some things needed a minor amount of hemming, but that was it. But now, thanks to the rest of you fat lazy people we call Americans, I have no choice but to either move to Thailand or sew my own clothes. I chose the latter option. However, even the sewing patterns don’t fit me correctly…which I thought was due to my freakishly small size.

So, I decided to enroll myself in a pattern drafting class. Susan, my teacher, lives in the ass end of nowhere up a mountain on a dirt road in the middle of the woods. Funny thing is, her house it literally only 3 miles from the highway, but it’s NH and 3 miles from the highway means wilderness. Susan is a custom bridal gown designer and author of a Bridal Gowns: How to Make the Wedding Dress of your Dreams..

In our first class on Monday, Susan took our measurements and we drafted our front bodice piece. And I learned a lot about myself and clothes and fitting, such as:

1.) My torso is not “petite” length even though the rest of me is. I think this means I have short legs…which refutes the bike industry’s theory that women have “longer legs and shorter torsos compared to men”. I sort of already knew this, since I ride a 50 top tube, which for a 4′11″ person is rather long. I’ve met women who are 5′2″ who can’t ride my bike because they’re too stretched out. I always thought it was my long arms (they are long, my wingspan is two inches longer than my height. I’m like a female Michael Phelps, only shorter and not very good at swimming).

2.) My back torso length is longer than my front. It shouldn’t be. This means that in all tops or dresses, the shoulder seams drift back and the collar always chokes me. This explains why hoodies are a problem and why button front shirts don’t work for me.

3.) I have a slightly forward thrusted neck and not-quite-a-sway-back but definitely a hollow in the low back. I don’t have a hunched over position, but my front definitely trends that way. This explains why whenever I sew a dress there is excess fabric in the low back. I don’t know if I was born this way or not, but I suppose spending a significant amount of time in this position certainly doesn’t help my posture:
4.) I have narrow shoulders. This struck me as odd, because I thought my shoulders were rather wide for my size. I prefer 40cm handlebars on my bike when most women my size use 38 or even 36cm bars. But the distance between my shoulder tip and neck is on the narrower side, which explains why sleeve/shoulder seams or edges on sleeveless tops hang off the edge of my shoulder.

Now I know why certain clothes never fit me, why I almost exclusively wear crew neck T shirts and turtlenecks, and why I have trouble with commercial patterns. It also got me thinking more about how women fit bikes, which is basically half of my master’s thesis, so it’s something I think about all the time. I take a ton of measurements from each of my subjects in my research, and it made me wonder if there aren’t a whole slew of other things we need to take into consideration when fitting bikes.

I have my front pattern piece done, and next week we do the back. This is exciting, because by the end of the class I will have an entire top pattern that will fit me perfectly. However, it is seriously curtailing my urge to sew a bunch of knit tops to wear. I guess I’ll have to go make some pants instead, since I actually have perfected my personal fit pants pattern.

In other news, I managed to get blood on my shirt yesterday during the first test of the morning. Nothing like greeting subjects covered in another person’s blood to really set their mind at ease. I seriously need to sew myself a lab coat, but I only have two more weeks of research and I doubt I’ll get to it in time.