Portland's Fat Community

Portland is great for many things. But on the top of my list would be their strong fat community. It wasn't till I joined an online BBW/FA community that I found so many of these very people in my own backyard so to speak. We arranged dinner meetups that soon turned into group outings for club and bar nights. Some of the activities and events that have graced this city in the past I wish were still around today. Like Fat Girl Speaks, the Cupcake dances and FATASS cheerleaders. All of these great groups and social gatherings that we used to have around portland but seemed to be a thing of the past sadly. But now days we have new events and community get togethers like Chunky Dunks, Fat Fashion & Art Nights, Fat-A-Licious fashion show put on by local plus size clothing boutiques. I have been to all three of these and they were so positive and fun. I love going to events filled with plus size women. The comradery with fellow fatties is just inspiring and uplifting. I'm always hoping Stacy Bias or even (i could only be so lucky) Beth Ditto will attend these seeing as she lives here and has been to some in the past. In the future I plan to attend as many of these from now on as possible and update as they occur. But until then I am going to post some pictures from some that I have already been to.

(Pictures 1. Me and friends at Chunky Dunk. Picture 2. Tim, Wednesday from PLS and me at the Bigger Art Night)

Here comes the big bride!

Well screw Picasa. Every time I try to post decent sized photos of my projects they show up tiny on here. I just focused more on getting a nice background on my blog. It finally worked! I think it looks rather snazzy.

But enough about that! I have some pictures to share with you on a project that I am rather proud of. I was planning my wedding earlier this year and with that I wanted to design my own wedding dress. I sketched one out and ran it past my friend Barb who said she would come up to Portland from Texas and sew it for me as long as I helped and paid for the fabric. Umm YES!! My dream dress was coming to life! It wasn't till about June this year that I looked through my old notebooks and found a sketch of a wedding dress I did when I was 17. I had not looked at my notebook in 10 years... 10 years! They were SO similar! The same full skirt, peaks at the top of the corset. I knew it was meant to be when I saw that. So here are some pictures from the finished dress. Black and white dupioni silk, black piping along the top of the corset and a black and white plaid for the bottom of the dress and at the waist. 1 week, 2 cranky fat ladies, 100 degree weather and working till the wee hours daily and this is the final project.

Also to add, since I've been asked a few times about it. I made the bouquet with upside down black and white christmas ornaments hot glued to little wooden pegs and put into a plastic bouqet holder with added feathers and black tulle.

Recent Work

Some of my most recent projects!

1. Turquoise and Checkered Tank Dress. I made this all from scratch. No patter, just traced an existing tank top I had and the rest was guess work. So I will pretty proud of it. The belt around the wait is 3 inch wide black elastic. When I made the skirt I looked at it and it was too busy, so I made some pockets with contrastingbows to try and add just the little bit of color to break it up. I think it worked.

2. Silver One Sleeve Dress.I started this one from a basic t-shirt dress, sized it up, took what I learned from my pattern design class and cut one of the arms off all together. I also made the sleeve long and with gathering at the top. The initial goal was for a large over the top poofed out shoulder. But with time constraints and limited fabric I didn't want to push my luck. I still like how it turned out.

3. Rose & Houndstooth Print Leggings. Once again I took a basic leggings pattern, sized it up to a 32 and used this fun print. I originally bought this fabric thinking it was a jersey knit, but it showed up as a thin spandex like fabric. Without letting it go to waste, leggings was the best idea to use it up.

4. The Cage Skirt. I saw a similar skirt like this on a plussize clothing site selling for over $80. I could no fathom spending that amount of money on what was basically black elastic. So I

bought a bulk roll of 3 inch elastic, measured myself at the waist, hips, mid-thigh and knee. Cut the measurements minus 3 inches (it needed to be tight), pinned it together and sewed the pieces together accordingly.

5. Gold Chain Topper. Easy as pie. Buy yards and yards of chains, get wire cutters and pliers. Draped them accordingly to what I wanted. Took me all of about 30 minutes. The hard part is if you do it by yourself, getting all the draping exactly to the right lengths. Large mirrors become your best friend at that point.

Lets give this another go

After over a year going by and not a single post I figured why not give it a try one more time. My life seems to have taken a different road since I was last posting. I have since gotten married, taken pattern design classes at my local community college, designed and made many new pieces including my wedding dress, started a cafe press page for my Big Body Hottie design and gained back some confidence I had lost. I feel like my life is on a good path and I might as well blog about my challenges and triumphs along the way.

So many girls I know are starting fat fashion blogs, which I love, but I don't want to join that club. Ever since I started sewing a couple years ago I get

more excited over pieces I make and fabric I buy than clothes I see online or at the mall. Don't get me wrong I still want so many lovely pieces, but now days I look at the garment and examine it's structure, lines and draping. So now rather than save for buying a special frock that won't end up fitting me anyway, I will just make it.

I won't post my recent projects just yet, but I will post this picture I found on a friends facebook page. I feel it suits me well.