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Refashioning for Weight Gain 3: Choosing what to care about and when to stop

12.18.2019

I was thinking about control when I stepped back to my sewing machine to tackle my dinosaur dress. I’ve written about how sewing helped me shift how I feel about my body, the realization I could make clothes that fit my body instead of making my body fit my clothes. But, when I pulled a me-made out from my closet and found it too small for the first time, I realized the down side. Throwing away a shitty dress from target when I’ve gained weight feels crummy, but no longer fitting into something I spent hours making feels so much worse. Rather than helping me let go of control over my body, in this moment sewing was allowing me to reinforce my desire for control in another way.

I’d tried shifting that desire for control from my body to my refashions, but that didn’t end up going so great either. Still feeling a little defeated from the jeans failure, I considered abandoning this dress for now. Thinking about all that this dress represents for me gave me pause. I may not be able to control the outcome, but I still felt like this dress deserved a second chance.

The first move I made was to unpick the entire thing to figure out how much fabric I had. Turns out the dress really was quite small, and quite short, and also a fair amount of the fabric was discolored, so there wasn't a lot to work with.

I decided one way to keep the dinos in the mix given how little material I had was to color block with a solid fabric I had plenty of. I decided to use princess seams to color block the top.

Realizing how little fabric was there presented a moment (the first of many) when it would have been reasonable to call it a day, or maybe give up on the dress and make a cute little pouch or something with the scraps. But I wasn’t quite emotionally ready to give up on this dress I loved, so I kept at it.

I was using a pattern I've made before, so I thought I was being extra responsible basting the top to check the fit before attaching the skirt. Joke's on me though, while it looked fine without the skirt, once I attached the skirt it became clear the waist line was a full 2" higher than I wanted it and I did not love it.

When the fit was wrong, and I didn’t have enough fabric to redo the bodice, it seemed like another good moment to consider giving up. But, alone in my sewing room with no pattern to follow and no hashtags of other people’s perfect makes of this dress, it was completely up to me to decide what a good outcome would look like. I figured I didn’t have much to lose, and decided to try a next reasonable thing.

I was short on material and couldn't think of a good way to lower the waist even if I was willing to unpick that entire gathered skirt. So, I thought, what if I just add some length in the arm straps? It's a little janky but it just might work. And it did work reasonably well.

Of course, lengthening the straps made the back too low, so I unpicked the entire back and shifted it up.

It suddenly came to mind that although I had made this before, it was a disaster then too. Wish I'd remembered that when I decided not to make a full test-run for fit. Maybe one day I'll learn to make muslins. Until that day I'll keep learning to improvise. This time, at least, I left myself a note on the pattern.

I knew I needed a waist tie to make it less baggy in the sides and back (heaven forbid I add a zipper!). I tried it on with the waist tie high enough to cover the seam between the skirt and the top and didn’t love how it looked, so I thought I’d experiment with adding the ties in a different spot, rather than having them wrap all the way across the front. I tried attaching the ties in a sort of quirky, decorative way, set in from the lines of the princess seam. It’s a cute detail, but I’m not sure it’s totally my style.

At this point I wasn’t working with a design idea anymore, I was just solving one problem after another. And, I was liking the dress less and less with every problem I “solved.” I had been at it for the entire day, and every move I made took the dress further from what I’d hoped it might be like. I think the partial ties look too cutesy, but I don’t like how it looks tied all the way across either. I don’t love the fit—the waist is still too high even with the hacked arm hole. I was running out of next right moves, and I decided it was time to step back, let go, and consider it finished for now. I don’t know yet whether this dress will grow on me. I suppose I’ll hang it in my closet and wait to see if I reach for it this summer (I’ll have to bind the edges by then). If not, at least I solved the issue of having that old, sentimental dress that’s much too small for me hanging around my closet just waiting to make me feel bad about my body.

Here's the dress, finished except for the bias binding, which I am procrastinating about because it is tedious and it's hard to feel rushed to finish a sun dress on a snow day.

I started these refashions hoping to create 3 fresh items of clothing, fitting great and serving as tangible reminders that I don’t need to control my body, because I can control what I do about clothes instead. What I discovered was that I can’t really control that either, because making things is hard and projects provide generous opportunities to fuck up and fail. But, I shouldn’t really be trying to control those things at all, because both just reinforce the message that I get my value from my quality as an aesthetic ornament, either through having the perfect body or dressing it in the perfect crafts. What I can control instead is how I relate to those messages. I can try to shape my perspective, even when I can’t control much else, and unlike controlling my body or controlling my crafts, learning to carefully consider my perspective in moments of challenge serves me in all facets of my life.

The old dinosaur dress symbolized my discovery that I could bolster how I feel about my body by reaching for the feelings of competence and mastery I feel when I make my own clothes. I think I did right by this dress in how I tackled this refashion. I listened to my own voice, aesthetics, taste, and skills, and I neither gave up too soon nor pushed myself too far. Whether over time I end up liking the result or not, I am proud of my persistent effort to give it a second chance.

My sewing practice doesn’t guarantee me control over the outcome, but I do have control over what I decide to care about, when I choose to keep trying, when I choose to let go, and how to decide what it all means to me. I responded to the challenges thrown my way by this dress with creativity, I gave myself abundant time and resources, and I reached for self-compassion with each setback. That’s a pretty perfect metaphor for how I’d like to treat my body, and how I’d like to relate to the questionable beauty standards that have me reeling when my clothes are too-tight in the first place.

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