Weekly SO

And this time I have a rather unpopular opinion.

Sometimes, while I knit or sew at my desk, I watch (or listen to?) videos. Sewing, history, costuming, and yes, knitting ones too. Sometimes I like watching pattern round-ups, because I can find new favorites, sometimes they annoy me, either because they are popularizing the absolute bland and boring knitting that seems to be the mainstream these days, or because they are full of data. The youtuber lists every available data, from the suggested yarn type and amout, through the supposed gauge, and needlesizes, to the sizes available. And lately there is always a comment if it is size inclusive or not, with the youtuber putting on a somewhat disdained face, or even shaking his/her head if it fails to be offered from size XXS to 6XL at least, and every time I hear/see that I vince.

And then there I came across with this video, talking about how much the majority of "sized up" patterns do not work. (I had other problems with this video too, though I generally enjoy Deborah's videos, most of the time I even agree with her - the series on The Game of Wool was really good, but this one was like she wanted to poung her "truth"/opinion into the viewer, there were things she said like three times...). 

Anyhow. 

I think once again, things are "falling over the other side of the horse" (a Hungarian phrase, meaning that we overdue something so much, it looses its meaning). 

While I do see the need to have patterns (knitting as well as sewing) for smaller and larger sizes as well, I do not think that demanding that EVERY designer should size his/her patterns for EVERY size is the solution, and if hey don't they are getting cancelled (like everyone with an opinion in our cancel culture), or called out for it. 

Everyone knows his/her own bodytype, and knows what suits *that* body type the best. They know how to design for *that* body type the best. Not every design sits/suits equally well on totally different type of bodies, and all the different bodies differ differently. Lets just look at the larger ones, there are apple, pear shaped, some of them have big boobs, but hardly any butts, some has thick arms, and those who are pear shaped might have bigger booties, others wider hips, while others might have rounder bellies, just to pick a few obvious factors. Not every design would fit EVERY size and every type of body, no matter how well designed, and how well tech edited, and how throughly tested. 

If someone is well practiced to design for a certain type of body, demanding that they design for a totally different one is like demanding a writer, whose that h/se should write a language s/he does not speak. 

I would much more happily endorse someone who designs specifically with larger bodies in mind (and not be angry, if h/se does not cater for smaller knitters) than pounding on someone, who cannot.

This is not against larger people, not "fat phobia", I, myself was a larger size up until very recently, and I was not demanding the patterns even when I had multiple X before the L. I would wholeheartedly support people who would and CAN design for them. However, I would not want to push, force, pound on people, for whom it would not come naturally, but still can have genius ideas, beautiful designs..

Also, we should just try to learn to knit differently, and not by following the patterns to the letter. Back in University once I wrote a paper on how differently the "Eurpoean" (Continental) and English/American patterns are written, and how the demands of the English/American knitting community changed European pattern-writing. English/American patterns describe the knitter literally how every stitch should be knitted, and do not leave much to the knowledge, experience, creativity of the knitter, while European patterns supposed that the knitter KNOWS what is s/he doing, and she can "increase in every sixth row" instead of having to write down every row. 

I remember, when knitting patterns were tenth of the size of today's petterns, basically just the outline of how to do it, and some charts (basically only a recepie) and we happily knitted them and modified them to the inch of their life. We did not get hung up of the magazine only printed ONE size, we recalculated modified, downsized, upsized them to whatever size we needed. We should reclaim that knowledge, practice and flexibility.