Can a Fat Girl Get Some Cute Patterns Please?

Being fat (if you take issue with that word, please see where I already addressed that), I am quite often excluded from clothing choices. Most of my off-the-rack shopping happens online, because, with a few exceptions, brick-and-mortar stores have apparently decided a solid half of the population (or more) is unworthy of entering their premises. Even brands that carry them often stick us in a back corner, or perhaps more insultingly, relegate us to online-only status. I guess they want our money but don’t want to actually see us.

Sadly, this exclusion also happens in knitting and crochet patterns. If you go to Ravelry, you have the option of searching only for patterns that come in plus sizes. The second you check that box, your choices rapidly diminish.

Case in point, when you search for any crochet top, with no criteria selected for yardage, yarn weight, hook size, or anything else, you get more than 3,600 results. Add in “plus” and that number drops below 300. It’s completely absurd.

All crochet tops:

Just tops marked “plus:”

The same thing happens with knitting patterns, where it drops from 13,000 to 1,300. Even if you take into account the fact that this removes children’s and men’s patterns, that’s still a massive, horrifying reduction.

Again, all tops:

Just plus tops:

You see the problem? There is absolutely no reason to create a pattern and then only size it for a minuscule fraction of the population. It’s lazy designing, at best. At worst it’s downright insulting, especially when you notice that the options for pieces that show more skin all but completely disappear. That, to me, indicates designers are buying into the tired, outdated idea that fat women should be covering up more than thin women should.

News flash: we have no more reason to hide our bodies than anyone else.

This is absolutely ridiculous. We shouldn’t have to beg and plead to get a few handouts, pattern-wise. They should just exist. You shouldn’t release a pattern unless it’s sized at least to 3X, and preferably it should go higher. This is especially true if you are charging money for the pattern. If I am paying you, I better be able to make the item in my size WITHOUT doing additional calculations.

I’ve heard the excuse (from an editor of a major knitting magazine, no less) that some patterns “just can’t” be sized up any higher. To that I say: then they aren’t good enough patterns to be published.

The ability to make a full range of sizes (hint: “full range” does not mean small through x-large) should be a non-negotiable part of the criteria for anyone who is creating or publishing patterns.

What About Plus Only? Isn’t That Just As Bad?

I’ve heard this asked about plus size clothing brands, so I am just going to assume that the question would come up in regards to plus-only patterns: isn’t it just as exclusive to make something only in plus sizes?

In short: no.

See, fat people are marginalized and oppressed, while thin people have privilege. This is not something that is up for debate.

Plus size stores and patterns exist because fat people are excluded from “regular” spaces. Someone saw the gap (…or The Gap, since they exclude us too) and filled it. If fatphobia didn’t lead people to make clothing lines or patterns that stop at size 14 or XL, there would be no need to make plus-only lines.

Marginalized people creating their own spaces and meeting their own needs is not the same as privileged people excluding them and passing it off as “normal.”

When there is a plus-only brand, pattern, or what have you, it is marketed as a specialty size. But thin-only ranges are marketed as the regular or normal set of sizes — in spite of the fact that there are not any more thin people in the population than there are fat people.

So no, it’s not “just as bad” or the same thing to create or design things for fat people only.

So What’s a Fat Crafter to Do?

I know what one solution to this is: create my own knit and crochet patterns that fit me and others my size. And I may do that. I’m currently working on a pattern that was easy to customize, and I’ll probably share that when I finish.

But I shouldn’t have to.

The solution to being excluded should not be to do the labor and make your own items. Unless you want to, of course, in which case create away! But people who want to buy clothes off the rack or create something directly from a pattern should have that option no matter what size they are.

If you’re a designer, there’s no excuse. You must make your patterns go beyond size L or XL.