Update to this post: FehrTrade patterns – now in size XXS!
Thank you all so, so much for your kind words and enthusiasm on my pattern announcement! It’s been literally months in the making and it was totally nerve-wracking to hit the Publish button.
Some of you commented on the XS size not being small enough, however, and I wanted to talk you through the background on this.
As we all know with multisize patterns, you can only have a limited number of sizes. Each size you add on must be graded (which is no mean feat!), then double-checked, adjusted, sewn up, and all the various trims must be calculated as well. For my first collection, five sizes seemed a reasonable number without biting off more than I could chew. I have huge respect for companies like Jalie that create their patterns in an epic amount of sizes, but that’s not something I’m qualified enough to do right now (nor am I particularly interested in designing for children)!
So I have to make choices. For me, I feel very strongly about supporting Plus sized ladies to exercise. I’ve had conversations with Plus sized fitness bloggers like Fattymustrun about the absolute lack of exercise gear for size 16+ in RTW – companies may say they offer it, but in reality, it’s almost impossible to actually buy, and when it does, you usually only get the choice of black (or worse, pink!). So when it came to choosing between offer one size smaller or one size larger, I made the choice to offer one size larger, so that larger women can have the opportunity to wear some fun exercise clothes, too.
You may think, “well, it’s no extra room on the pattern sheet to add another smaller size!” but it’s nowhere near that straightforward. Multisize patterns aren’t exactly like Russian nesting dolls – the way patterns are stacked to allow people to cut between sizes if they wish, there are multiple places where the smallest size line is actually outside the largest size!
Both the XYT Workout Top and the PB Jam Leggings are really tightly squished into their allotted number of pages, and I really don’t want to increase the number of pages that everyone needs to print, tape, and cut any more than I absolutely have to.
It may be that I can fit in a XXS (or TW for “teeny-weeny”?!) into my existing pattern sheets, but it won’t be before launch, and I can’t delay the launch any further in order to fit it in. What I will say, however, is that I will look into it, play around in Illustrator and see if I can fit in an additional size once the general pattern launch activities are out of the way, and if it is possible, I’ll update the patterns in the shop. So thank you all very much for commenting – I assure you I am listening!
The other aspect I wanted to address is that both of my patterns are drafted with 10% negative ease, so that they are worn tight around the body. This means that the finished garment measurements are 90% of the given body measurements – so even if you are 81B/62W/86H (32B/24W/34H), you can still wear the XS in my patterns and the lycra should still be close against the body. In fact, if you prefer to wear your exercise clothes a bit looser, you may wish to go up a size anyway.
A few of my pattern testers were smaller than the XS and still got great results from the patterns without doing much extra work, so if you like the patterns, waiting around for a pattern update may prove unnecessary anyway.
And for those with the opposite issue, I’m organising a guest post about how to perform an FBA (Full Bust Adjustment) on the XYT’s bra lining sometime in January!