The three biggest things I was told in high school and that turned out to be untrue:

"You're not going to have a calculator with you all the time,"

"You're going to find yourself in a situation where you want to have sex with someone,"

And

"Interfacing doesn't have a grain line."

Fast couple of things about fashion flats, specifically inspired by an indie patternmaker who is well known for offering patterns that no one can actually tell what they'll look like when they're made.

Fashion flats are a kind of fashion illustration designed to accurately show the detail of a garment. It's a picture of the garment, as if it was sitting on a flat surface, where all details are shown. This one is from Otomo no Sewing.

.1. Fashion flats should be drawn in proportion of a real human being. These are not the traditional 20-heads-tall illustration body. Your template that you use (and yes, you should use a template) should have real human proportions.

This specific template isn't particularly ideal, because it's just me tracing a picture of a person. If you're making a flat to communicate things for personal reasons, downloading a mannequin online is a totally good options. If you're a pattern company, you might want to make your own. Please reference a real human when you make your template, so that your flats are actually usable.

2. Your flats should all be in proportion to each other. If you're drawing a collection of garments, each garment should be drawn with the same reference template. If one shirt is shorter than another, then your illustrations should reflect that. If you are a pattern company, all your flats should be drawn as if they're going to be worn by the same model. This will allow people to see that the bustline on some patterns is higher than the bustline on other patterns by the same company.

.3. A flat is not a picture of a garment on an invisible body. A flat is a picture of the garment lying flat on a surface. When you're drawing a garment on a person, the waistline will be curved, because it's wrapped around the person. When you're drawing a garment lying flat, the waistline should be a straight line, because it's lying flat. In the language of fashion flats, a curved waistline means that the waistline is actually sewn with a curve.

.4. Whenever possible, you should draw your flat by laying the actual garment on a flat surface, and drawing what you see. You must still use your template for this, to make sure you draw bustlines at bustlines and waistlines at waists, but you should just draw the things you see.

.5. Trace things whenever possible. If your garment is symmetrical, your flat should absolutely be symmetrical. Draw half of the garment, fold your paper in half, and trace that half onto the other side. The front of the garment will always be attached to the back of the garment, so finish yoru front view, and then trace the outline of your front view. Fill in the details and you have your back view.

.6. While a well-done flat is a piece of art, the art in fashion flats is not in interpretation. It is in accurate and effective communication. Someone who is really good at flats is not pouring their heart and soul and creativity into their work. Someone who is really good at flats is someone who can capture all the detail accurately, and who can do that quickly. A flat is the equivalent of a 12pt Times New Roman document that lists the ingredients you need for zucchini bread: its purpose is to communicate meaning, not to show itself off. Your fashion collection or pattern company can show its uniqueness and style in so many other ways; just let the flats communicate the info they should be communicating. You don't need to typeset your instructions in webdings or the font metal bands use for their names, and you don't need to make your flats kawaii.

some of my favorite replies to this tweet. happy lesbian visibility week!

while youre wheelchair posting i wanted to say that you talking about why you decided to continue using one really changed my own perspective on my disability! i get awful chronic join pains usually triggered by standing, and although im taking the physical therapy route (im hypermobile, so thats the first option,) ive recently considered that using something like a wheelchair or a cane wouldnt be so wrong of me if i feel i need it

I tell people that I just want to be able to do the things that other people do. I want to shop in a store for as long as I want, without hurting. I want to walk around the mall and look at things. I want to go somewhere without having to plan ahead where I will sit down and how long we'll be waiting in line. I want to work a full day in my store, walking from the back room to the front, guiding customers to the different areas, and I want to do that without being in pain.

My wheelchair lets me do that. My body does not let me do that.

My advice to literally everyone who thinks they might need it is, "just get the damn cane." Canes are among the cheapest mobility aids out there. They come in insanely cool colors and styles. There are ones that fold up when you don't need them. You can get one for $10 and you can just go into Walgreens and buy one. Worst case, which is also best case, you just spent the cost of a trip to McDonald's on something you don't use. Worst case, which is also best case, you find something that lets you be yourself doing the things you want to do for longer and with less pain. Worst case, which is also best case, you see that it helps you and it is the gateway into getting a more supportive mobility aid that lets you live a better life. Literally every worst case scenario you can think of is also your best case scenario. Get the cane.

I went to Goodwill on my lunch break just now and they had a rollator for $8, so we're going to experiment with Pink+Rollator in the upcoming days. Currently I'm okay with walking short distances but I really can't stand for more than a couple of minutes, so bringing a device that's also a chair with me seems like it'd be a good step in my mobility.

But yeah, to everyone who is going "hey, I think I could benefit from a mobility aid," this is me, a disabled person, telling you to go for it. You didn't need my permission, but you have it anyway. Get the mobility aid!

A wheelchair is just a chair with wheels, and you didn't need anyone's permission to sit down at a rolling desk chair. You were able to look at the options given to you by the world and choose that, in that context, sitting down on a chair with wheels was going to be the best for your body and your personal convenience. You can look at your body and your environment and make statements like, "I should not be standing for 55 minutes in this line. I can only stand for x minutes," and that's normal. Abled people make decisions like "I'm not going to stand for this long" or "I'm not going to walk this far," all the time. But when you add, "so I'm going to bring a special chair with me, so that I can wait 55 minutes in this line, like all the other people in the line," suddenly it feels different. But abled people are allowed to always be making judgements for when they're pushing their body too hard, and they make decisions all the time about when they're going to take advantage of an aid or take a break, so the only thing that changes when you're disabled is when you have to decide to use it, not at all that you have to use it. People get to pick what shoes they want based on where they're going, and that's just picking a device to aid your mobility as needed for a certain environment. Using a mobility aid is a totally normal thing, except that we've artificially labeled them as "normal person accommodations" and "ask for this and you're disabled."

Disclaimer: obviously bring it up with your care team if you are interested in using a mobility aid (and you have a care team). A LOT of doctors are hesitant to tell young people that they should be trying a mobility aid, but will say you'll benefit from it if you bring it up. If you have a PT then they're likely to have input about what are the best options and how to set them up. Also some doctors can get you mobility aids for free. Even if the cane you get from your doctor is black and boring and doesn't fold, you can still go to the store and get a cane that's fun and cool and then use the one the doctor gave you as a size reference to know how to set the one you just got. Hey, free cane.

Okay I gotta ask, why do you hate invisible zippers?

There are some dresses that I can't wear because I can get the zip up. This is due to hand weakness from a botched surgery, and due to the fact that I rely on a garment being at least a little bit shirred in order to fit my body measurements. For the majority of dresses that this applies to, I can't put them on if there's an invisible zipper, but can wear them just fine if the zipper is changed and no other modifications are made. Invisible zippers can make an EGL garment not inclusive to larger sizes and to certain disabilities.

Invisible zippers are weaker than traditional zippers. In order to hide up into the seam allowance, they have to have exposed teeth that curl. Because the curl is wider, the zip is more likely to have teeth shift and go out of alignment. When they're misaligned, the zipper is more likely to open up from the bottom. If this happens on a traditional nylon coil zipper, you are often able to actually re-seat the zipper, but that's not an option in an invisible zipper.

Invisible zippers are not invisible if you're using the shirring in the dress to make it fit. If there's strain on the garment, it's going to pull the seam apart and make the zipper very visible.

Invisible zipper slides don't have a hole in the end of the slide, meaning that people who use adaptive tools to help zip their garments have a lot fewer options for griping and pulling.

Invisible zippers are much more difficult to put in precisely. When you're putting in a traditional zipper, you can take your time to make sure that your seams match up when you baste your seam together, and the you don't need to worry about those pieces matching up later. Getting a waist seam to match up when you don't start by basting it together is much harder. Since invisible zippers are much more applicable to precision garments where you need to have zero topstitching, a misaligned waist seam is going to be much less forgiving.

Invisible zippers are, in lolita fashion, often pretty rarely a requirement. A lot of our fashion is pretty heavily inspired by vintage clothing, and a lapped zipper that's done well looks like a nice little vintage touch. If your fabric is printed, even if your dress has minimal or no topstitching, the pattern will hide the stitching pretty nicely. This is especially true if you didn't have enough fabric to match the pattern across the sides of the zip; it won't look like a smooth unbroken line anyway, so why install a more exclusionary, weaker, less precise, and still eventually visible zip there?

There are garments where you really don't want topstitching at all. This dress that I made back in 2013 makes extensive use of shaped facings to avoid any topstitching at all. To stick a zipper in a traditional form would really break that look. But in lolita fashion, the times when this is actually necessary is a lot less than the number of times when it's used.

But if your garment has topstitching literally anywhere, you can justify putting the Objectively Superior Traditional Zipper in there.

So yeah, as long as I'm disabled and larger than a Japan size 6, I'm going to stand behind my statement that invisible zippers are evil.

Has anyone brought up the fact that Shuro clearly has this idealized vision of Falin and clearly doesn't see that her behavior is just as neurodivergent as her brother

Hi! I’ve been eying Lolita fashion for several years and want to start putting together my first coord. However I have sensory issues and know that sheer or light synthetic fabrics can often be itchy. Do you have any advice for finding cute tights or light blouses that I could actually wear?

All reference images are going to be my coords because it's late and I don't have time to ask other people for permission to use theirs. If you have things to share about this subject, please reply, reblog, or submit input to this blog.

So for tights, there's a lot of cool printed tights that are 80denier, which is about at thick as tights can be before they're fleece-lined or leggings. I have a few pairs that I got off ebay (My search term is just "80 denier printed tights"). I carry most of my weight in my legs, so I had a lot of concern about them stretching and distorting on my legs so that you can't see the pattern, but that didn't happen for me.

Here's two of the pairs that I have, from two different sellers, and I really love how they look. I feel like getting printed tights really allowed me to add detail in my coords that I hadn't been taking advantage of.

If 80den tights are still too thin or itchy for you, there are things like fleece-lined tights or velvet tights, which are pretty much leggings. Speaking of leggings, leggings paired with boots (ankle or taller) often read as tights. There's also a long history of using socks for lolita; we're used to seeing them as lace-topped, but plain ones are as well.

Also for non-printed tights, I often wear them inside-out so that the seams face away from my body (and especially my feet. I hate toe seams). I've got petticoats on, so there's no werid seam lines pressing through my clothes, and anyone who is close enough to see that they're on inside-out is also close enough to kick, so problem solved.

As for blouses, it's not uncommon to find things like cotton voile, which are both sheer and very soft. Older pieces more often used solid cottons for the blouses. The polyester ruffled crop tops that we love for their price and versatility are relatively new in the world of lolita, having been pretty much unheard of as recently as 5-6 years ago. I like to shop on Wunderwelt for blouses, because they very clearly post pictures and state fiber contents. They have a lot of older things and pieces from less over-the-top lolita brands, so it's easier to find something smooth and without lace. One of the really cool things about lolita fashion is that something being out of trend now doesn't mean that it can't be worn, as long as it was in lolita trend sometime in the fashion's history. Here's a shot of a coord I did with a sheer blouse, but it's 100% cotton. That blouse is by Emily Temple Cute, and I wore it because that meet was outside in the sun and I didn't want to roast. Sorry for using the same coord twice there.

I also sometimes will take out the elastic in something and sew back in a new strip that's significantly larger. I really hate things being on my upper arm, so the elastic in this blouse is actually larger around than my arm. The top of the sleeve poofs even though the elastic isn't physically holding the sleeve to my arm, because of where I put the elastic relative to where the sleeve hole is. The same effect could be done with just some bias tape or some careful gathering stitches, but I did elastic because it's faster and lazier. That's a blouse from Spirit Halloween, with some extra lace slapped on.

I would also like to bring up the very important "faking it" card concept that I've talked about before. If your coordinate is fabulous, and almost all of it is perfect, if you have a gap between where your footless tights end and your shoes begin, you're going to get away with it. You can fake your way through at least two elements of your coordinate, and make up for it in other ways. So, when you're finding that there's something that you cannot overcome, where no matter what you try you just aren't finding a lolita-specific blouse that works or tights that are soft enough, try to find something that's just good enough. If you can find something that doesn't specifically detract, something that's just good enough, and that lets you be comfortable enough to be happy, just stop there. Then, take the rest of your effort, and work on making every part of the coordinate that doesn't make the sensory gremlins get up in arms into part that's as perfect as you can make it.

Something you'll also see in practice a lot more than you'd expect is that not every coord someone wears looks as perfect as they put online. If you get the chance to participate in the EGL community in person, you'll find that there's some events where someone just knew they didn't pull out their best coord. Sometimes, you put on something that's good enough, that's far from perfect. You dress up enough to go out with the friends and have a good time, but you don't dress up enough to where you want to put that coord out all over the place as the epitome of your grace.

Here's me having a Grat Tim at the Farmer's Market, in a coord that barely holds things together, in a petticoat from Party City and a blouse from Target, and the same black ankle boot(s) that I wear everywhere. I woke up really not feeling it and opted for a comfy coord that I could change out of when I went to work, and here's where we got. I've been going through some crap with my right ankle for over a year now, and so my local community is very used to seeing those sparkly black ankle boots, regardless of if they match the coord. All my coords from 2019 had brightly-colored KT Tape on my right hand, and that shit's $1.14 a strip and I'm not about to change it to match my coord. Every time I posted a coord for review, I'd just say, "please ignore the medical tape", and everyone did. I've found that a lot of people are understanding when you ask not to be heavily critiqued in certain specific areas.

Sensory issues impacting how we dress is more common in lolita fashion than we seem to talk about online. I have sensory issues, though they're not the same things you have. I know a lot of people in my comm do as well. If anyone has input they'd like to share, please do. Anon, please check the notes to see if anyone else with similar issues is willing to share their experiences, and see if they're able to help you.

The number one most important part of being visibly disabled is making incredibly distinctive fashion choices so when people stare at you, you can tell yourself it's because your outfit's cool

Quick tip to people with brightly colored hair:

You know how harsh shampoo, especially dandruff shampoo, will absolutely strip the color out of your hair? Well, it'll strip the dye transfer out of the collars on your nice blouses, too.

My laundry room sink has had a very hard life and I would appreciate it if you didn't judge it openly and to my face. It's about to get knocked down and replaced, so the stains are going to go away soon.

Anyway, left is before. This shirt has already been washed, and this is the color transfer that did not come out in the washing machine. Right, the bottom half of the collar has been scrubbed, but the top half has not. I put more work into scrubbing after these pictures, and got all the pink transfer off.

Why does this work? I have zero science but I do have two suspicions. First is the obvious, some shampoos will already strip unbonded dye molecules out of anything they can. However, synthrapol/professional textile detergent does the same, and I've never found it to be as effective.

The second thing is that there's a lot of staining that can't be chemically removed. It's got to be taken out with manual scrubbing. The fact that shampoo works up into a very thick lather makes it a lot easier to mechanically remove things, because it's just easier to manipulate the fabric.

Anyway, I know that shampooing garments to remove dye transfer is a strategy we've been using in EGL fashion for over a decade now, but there's a lot of people here who weren't in the EGL live journal scene of 2012, so if you ask me, it's time to bring the old resources back.

the lack of compassion that a good portion of lotr fans show for frodo ("why can't he fight or do simple tasks" "why is he so weak" "why does he always need help / to be rescued") mirrors the lack of compassion of people for those who bear the burden of invisible disabilities. he's struggling against an immense weight at every step! something that actively tries to destroy him, worsening at every moment! his heroism is in just continuing to walk his path, step by step. his bravery is in just existing as himself under the debilitating weight of the ring. but because the influence of the ring is invisible, it is forgotten, and frodo is written off as a weak, cowardly, and/or useless character, much like disabled people irl. in this household we do not stand for frodo slander!!!

I think it’s really cute that Mickbell called Chilchuck a greedy old geezer and was like ‘nyeh nyeh 😠🖕fuck you’ and was giving him the stinkeye from a distance when their parties met up.

and despite that, Chilchuck had no hesitations about taking him to hide in safety. and then they were chill enough to talk shit with each other later lol

me as a child: this "$4.99" sales stuff is idiotic, anyone can instantly round this up to $5 in their mind, no one is falling for this

me as an adult: oh wow only $4 (with some additional numbers behind it), that's great because if it was a single dollar more that would have been the last straw for me in my miserable life

isnt the world so beautiful....all the little ways we're immortal...71 million years later they still sleep like you

I’m gonna be honest I went anonymous by accident. By reflex. Because I’m so used to the silly pokeblog rp.

you are a delightfully strange presence in my life, I love watching your art improve and hearing about your fucked up little guys, you are a creature that is a friend and I say this with utmost affection

tangerine lavender tangerine lavender moss!

EMERALD <3

pspspspspspsp the anons can come off its okkaayyyyyyyy WHOMSTVE!!!

THE FUCKIMHGNHGN BITING AUUGHH

what if i just rest my eyes for a second