I Am An 8

Another iteration of the knot top:

The length is good, but the top does not look as good on my body as it does on the dress form. There are issues around my waist and hips. That sent me on a safari through my fitting books for help.

The husband is baffled by my obsession with clothing. He gets up every morning, puts on shirts and pants that do not match, in the same size he has worn since college, and goes out the door. Clothing, for him, is entirely utilitarian. I am obsessed because this is a puzzle. This is a code I am determined to crack. I want to be able to make clothing that fits me well and looks good, and if I am going to teach fitting classes, I want to be able to transfer that knowledge to other people—people who are shaped differently than me.

After looking through all of my fitting books, I determined that I have a high hip curve. (I remember Ryliss talking about this when I took my private class in Tacoma in November.) That means that the widest portion of my hips is up near my waistline. My hips flare out and then go straight down, as opposed to someone who has a more gentle angle from the waist that ends in wider hips 7-9" below the waist. A lot of people with high hip curves also have “hip dips,” although I don’t. A hip dip is where you have a little divot in the side between your hips and thighs.

Once I had that piece of information about hip curves, I went to Pinterest. This, I think, is where Pinterest shines as a research tool. I searched “high hip curve fitting” followed by “high hip curve drafting,” and all sorts of interesting stuff started popping up.

If you spend any time in the deep end of the fashion/style pool, you are bound to run across articles about body shapes. Are you an apple or a pear? An inverted triangle or a rectangle? If you don’t want to be categorized as fruit or a geometric shape, perhaps the Kibbe body type system is for you. You’ll be a Dramatic or a Romantic or something else that sounds like it came out of a gothic novel.

I ran across an article that mentioned the “8” body shape. This is a subcategory of the hourglass that includes people like me with high hip curves. If you’ve ever put on a dress with a belt and been told (as I have) that you look like a “sausage tied in the middle,” you might be an 8. When Ryliss pronounced me a “rectangle,” I was a bit baffled as I do have a well-defined waist.

This also explains why I love love love high-waisted pants. The 8 body shape also tends to have a longer rise. Hey, that’s me! And if you put mid-rise or low-rise pants on an 8, with a defined waist but straight hips, there is nothing to anchor them in place. High rise pants that fit around my waist keep my pants from falling down.

This is where things get into the weeds. I started looking at some style advice for 8’s and it was all over the map. Some articles recommended peplums. I look like an idiot in peplums. Other articles recommended wearing tops and dresses nipped in at the waist. That only works if your waist is in the same location as ready-to-wear clothing, not 2" below it. Some articles said 8’s should never wear tunics. Other articles said tunics and tops that skim past the waist area are the best choice for 8’s.

[There is a metaphor for life in there somewhere.]

I thought about the tops I like to wear and realized that I very rarely wear anything with a defined waistline. My favorite pieces of clothing are the tunics and tops that skim past the waist, although I have to be careful that they don’t look too much like maternity wear. Those are the silhouettes that I find most flattering.

So. I have arrived at the next station on this fitting journey. The first stop was realizing how long my torso is compared to RTW industry standards, which means dropping the waistline by at least 2" on any pattern I make. The second stop is where I’ve figured out that even though I now know where to put the waistline on the clothing I make, having a defined waistline may not be the most flattering choice.

[I have fantasies of living on a planet where I am not an outlier—a planet where clothing fits me, people are ruled by common sense, and I can buy a diesel station wagon that gets 40 mpg (or better) because that’s what I want to drive.]

I’m going to go through all my patterns today. I want to take a hard look at what works and what doesn’t, and I think that by the time I make the next iteration of this knot top, I may have cracked this part of the code—for me, at least.

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For my Mennonite friends who may be reading this blog (if you made it this far), I have a favor to ask. Our minister retired in October of 2022. We hired a dynamic young woman to be our transitional pastor, with the shared understanding that she would be with us for about 18 months while we undertook a search for a settled pastor. (The Mennonite church prefers to use the word “settled” rather than “permanent.”) She comes from a different faith background, but that hasn’t been an issue.

Nothing about this process—neither the part about hiring a transitional pastor nor the part about searching for a settled pastor—has gone according to plan. (Obviously, because we have a former Presbyterian minister serving our congregation.) Some of us are chafing at the rules that we are being asked to follow, because it’s obvious that God is following a different set of rules. That points up the folly, I think, of attempting to put God into any kind of box, but that’s a sermon for another day.

We have a listing for our pastoral opening on the MCUSA website. It’s been up for two months with not so much as a nibble. We are aware that this process could take a while, but we’re also aware that the traditional channels may not work for us. If any of you out there know of anyone considering a pastoral position, would you send them our way? Northwest Montana is a beautiful place to live—occasional -40F days notwithstanding—and we have a wonderful, supportive congregation. Thank you!