plus sizes for men

Not many. Simplicity used to have some, but they weren't well drafted, imo; I've given up on most commercial patterns and haven't checked their stock for awhile. Kwiksew goes up to 2x. Connie Crawford

has a very good shirt pattern up to 6x (raise the CF neck 1/2", swap the button and buttonhole sides for guys), and a t-shirt pattern that can be modified fairly easily into a men's shirt, and some scrubs that tend to work for both genders.

There are not many around..

You have to hunt them up, and unfortunately the plus size patterns also tend to get discontinued quicker than regular size patterns...

As Kay stated, the patterns from the big pattern houses (when you can find them) have problems. Shirts are generally not as problimatic as the slacks patterns, which tend to be far too short in the torso area, and way too tight in the crotch. I use a now discontinued Simplicity pattern (9477) for slacks, but do I modify it so that it fits, (I add length to the torso, and add a 12"x6" diamond gusset in the crotch).

Shirt patterns tend to be too short, which is easily remedied by simply adding length to you pattern. I almost always add 6 to 8 inches length to a shirt pattern., so that the wearer can sit and/or reach without exposing his waist.

This page has a few casual patterns you might find useful:

210, 220, and 230 you might find useful, as they have sizingup to 4x. (which I have successfully expanded to 6x without pulling myhair out)

Mary has a page of big & tall mens patterns:

Does anyone know of a source for plus sized patterns for men?

That exactly matches my experience. I discovered the utility of adding the gusset when I made a pair of knee breeches that required adjustment just about everywhere. I did not buy enough fabric (I bought more than the pattern required) but I was able to make the gusset with a closely matching fabric. After I got it right, I put the pattern on brown wrapping paper. Fortunately I did the first fitting with a muslin, so I was able to plan the gusset.

I'll buy at least 30% more fabric than the pattern calls for if I'm making trousers from a new pattern. I find it also helps to have an old pair of properly fitted trousers that can be dismantled and used as a model or guide.

...it also helps to avoid "plumber's rear."

*best innocent look*

I have tested pattern software in the past (including wild ginger), and unfortunately their big mens slopers do indeed suffer from the same problems that the big pattern companies slopers do.. On top of the slopers not being correct, you now have patterns that you have to try and print on dozens of sheets of paper, and then put together... Yuck.

me

My only fight with that is that if they only have a standard A4 printer, it takes longer to piece the pattern together than it does to make the garment afterwards!

Nonsense, Kate. It takes less than 10 minutes to piece most patterns together, which is far less time than it takes to slice and dice commercial patterns.

Today is the day!! :)

Karen Maslowski in Cincinnati

Kate Dicey wrote:

I don't see how they could since you put in the specific measurements.

And as far as tap> I have tested pattern software in the past (including wild ginger),

Nah... That's a thing I do so often that most pattern pieces take only moments! Carefully gluing 43 A4 sheets of bridal skirt together doesn't strike me as a good use of my time or the customer's money. With a 36" plotter I'd be quids in! Mind you, that's not counting the best part of £500 it would cost for a pre-loved one, plus the floor space it would occupy...

Since I don't own the software, I shan't bother right now. I quite like skiddling about with bits of paper, mind...

Counting: seven days... ;)

Ah well. I only sew for me, and I am not about to make wedding dresses so the gluing takes only moments. I clip the corners of each sheet of paper as it comes out of the printer, then flip up a leaf on the dining table, spread them out and reach for my trusty glue pen. As Karen says, it doesn't take more than five or ten minutes to have it all together - very little more than it takes me to unfold and iron a commercial pattern ...................... and I don't have to do all the abstruse calculations to see where I am going to have to alter same.

Mind you, I still make a trial garment if the pattern is new, just in case some adjustments are needed, but once it works I use it, then hang all the parts on a skirt hanger in the studio closet ready for re-use.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans

Well, I am sorry that you don't see how, but the computer program does in fact use slopers, which key off the measurements you can enter into it. These slopers are "off" on big mens sizing, just as the commercial patterns are... Believe me, I DID try this, as I thought I had found something that was going to be really great, and I was sadly dissappointed.

If you make a lot of big men's clothes, you would see how the slopers become more and more incorrect the larger the size is. By the time you hit a big men's 5x or 6x, the slopers are just a mess.

Slack patterning is a bigger problem than shirt patterning, imho, as the corrections needed for the shirts slopers are usually easier to perform. I might mention that big mens RTW is also made incorrectly in the same areas that the slopers are traditionally incorrect.

Trust me, If I could draft a remotely correct pattern with computer software, I would be the first in line to buy said software.

Also, please remember that these are very BIG patterns (example - big men's 6x is a 68 inch waist), and the piecing of them is not remotely comparable to a size 8-10 dress, so to go thru all of that piecing only to have to cut the pattern apart, and make major changes to the pattern invalidates whatever worth you might derive from the program.

Please note I do not have a sliding glass door (not everyone does). I also live out in the country, and I have never seen a drafting shop within 100 miles, and I certainly would not be able to justify the expense in time or money for an end result of an incorrect pattern.

me

True, but not everybody has windows to their house that consist of a bunch of 12 x 18 inch panes, either.

I am just posting this to share my experience -- I understand you are not going to try the program again, but I know that some people give up before they should.

Well, I have 62-inch hips, a 4-cesarean stomach that makes me look 78- months pregnant, and an extremely large busted, extremely pear shaped figure, and they fit me fine, so although I use the ladies' version, I'm really not *that* far off from the example you gave. I found that they key was putting in the measurements that the program actually wanted and not just the ones that I thought it wanted.

Now, my first sloper had some very noticeable problems, but when I sent my measurements to the Wild Ginger ladies for them to review, they found the problems. The second shoulder was just a skosh tight in the armhole due to the extrapolations I had to make to get the measurements the program wanted due to my figure anomalies. The third one had a perfect fit.

And you may not have a sliding glass door, but you might have a 2- or

3-foot wide window, and all I have are little tiny panes with aluminum framing around them on my windows (except the one over the kitchen sink, which we replaced), so you might have something that would work.

P.S. If you make a sloper using the correct measurements, how can it be off? That's what is making me totally befuddled. For example, if I enter my correct shoulder length (not what another method wants for the shoulder length), then the sloper will have the correct sloper length. If I give it my correct bust and underbust measurement, it will calculate the correct bra cup size and include the appropriate dart and extra front length in the bodice front.

From reading what you are saying, I get the impression that you are looking at a piece of software that just generates the nearest standard sized pattern. A sloper is only as good as the measurements used to create it, and if you have 100% accurate measurements, you will have a

100% accurate sloper that will only need fitting (not alteration) to be a 100% accurate pattern.

This is all why I have yet to bother with any of the pattern software available at present. Just because you have a 52" bust doesn't mean you have a 22" neck, a shoulder length of 14", and are 7 feet tall with arms

592 long...!

None of it seems to cope with people of significantly more or less than average height, either. Nor with folk who have one hip or shoulder higher than the other, boobs at slightly different heights, or very curved spines due to spinal degeneration... All this leads me to calculate that at present I am better buying a pattern and altering it to fit as this takes less time than printing one out in tiny bits and gluing them together only to find that they need the same alterations as I'd have to do for the commercial pattern.

For something that was more difficult to draft than my usual alteration stuff, I'd sent off a complete set of measurements to a specialist pattern drafter and pay them to do it: it would cost about the same as doing it myself and charging the customer for the hours, and be much better as it would allow me to get on with other projects.

I recently bought a pattern from Australia. It cost £45 plus post and packing, and I added 2" in the bodice and 2" in the skirt to make it the right length for my 6'2" customer. That took all of 15 minutes... This worked out at a better costing and MUCH better use of my time than drafting it myself.

Most people come to me because they have fitting issues (short waists and big busts are common, as is being taller than average, and having a significant difference between top and bottom sizes). Some also want historical clothing. Paying all that money out for a 36" plotter and set of software that didn't do EXACTLY what I wanted is a waste of time and money.

Something I'd find a great deal more use would be a program that drew accurate slopers. If I could take the tedium out of THAT process by feeding in a complete set of measurements, and be able to include differences in shoulder height and width, shoulder slope, and stance (which makes a huge difference to the way clothes fit!), I'd be on it like a shot! Taking a good sloper and manipulating it for style is easy for me compared with getting the sloper correct in the first place!

Same here! Drafting shop? I'd have to go to London! No thanks! Adding the cost of the journey plus my time for a pattern that didn't fit? I'd never have any work at all!

I talked all this through with the customer who bought the Oz pattern, and she saw the problem immediately. I wish things were different. Just imagine the joy of feeding in a complete set of measurements and a picture, and 20 minutes later you have a pattern that fits without fiddling for whatever style you like!

Kate, pattern-drafting software can draft a pattern as accurately as any flat drafting method. There was one lady on the Wild Ginger list who was a theatrical costumer by occupation and who used her pattern drafting software in her work.

This, of course, is not to say that some people might prefer altering commercial patterns by hand or just hand-drafting them rather than using software. Personally, I found it cumbersome and tedious each time I had to try to get a new pattern to fit. It would take several tries, and when I became a single parent and had to work full time, I ended up not sewing at all, because I got tired of the few altered patterns I had and didn't have the time to go through 3 or 4 iterations until I had something that fit.

It's not really tiny bits, and I hope you believe me that a custom-drafted-by-software pattern created with accurate measurements can come lots closer to a person's measurements than a commercial pattern. And Dress Shop takes separate measurements for each quadrant, and doing that can accommodate all the anomalies you mention.

I hope that some day you at least buy a Click and Sew pattern ($25USD as opposed to $200 USD for the full Pattern Master Boutique program) or a small "slice of the full program" equivalent from someone else and try it for yourself so that you see for yourself what pattern-drafting software is like. I have seen a number of people give up on pattern drafting software because they had unrealistic expectations or because they didn't give the program the measurements they wanted.

Then you really need to try some software and see what it does.

Please get out of your mind that pattern drafting software is junk. I adore WG products and have had a great experience with them. I had an absolutely wretched experience with Dress Shop, which I was very surprised at because I expected to love it. But there are ladies who have had the exact opposite experience.

Well, like I said, pattern drafting software can draft a pattern as accurately as any flat-pattern drafting method. It cannot, of course, draft a pattern as accurately as the draping method.

I made a few attempts before I gave up... Believe me, It would have made my life much easier had it worked. Since we are swapping mini stories here, I guess I will give a quick rundown of my story...

This is what happened.....My husband wears a big mens size 6x. He has always been a big person, even as a small child. When we first got together, he would go to a big men's shop and purchase RTW.. I found I was spending a great deal of time repairing very, very expensive, poorly constructed, and poorly fitting** RTW, only to have to repair it over and over, as it simply did NOT fit correctly.

That is when I started making all his clothes. After he started wearing the new, correctly fitting clothes, people would stop us in town and ask us where we bought big mens clothes that actually fit. DH would tell tham that I made the clothes...

So that was how people started reccommending me to their big friends. I really did not ask to get this business, and certainly did not go looking for it. I do it because I feel for the people who cannot find clothes that they can wear. I too know what it is like to leave the house with someone, hoping that some crucial seam would not suddenly let go while you were in town... This is not a pleasant thing to have nagging at the back of your mind constantly.

(** Big men's clothes universally tend to be way too short in the slacks rise, and way too tight in the crotch. Shirts tend to be far too short. These deficencies are 100 percent the fault of incorrect slopers, which are just enlarged and enlarged from smaller sizes without making some very necessary, fundamental corrections.) As an example, all big mens slack patterns I have used callout an 8 inch zip.. I have never made a correctly fitting pair for any big man with less than a 12 inch zip, and use 14 inch zips most often for slacks.

Individuals may have other fitting problems as well, depending on whether or not they have an "apron", short/long torso, short/long arms and/or "wings",and "bull" neck... All these are typical fitting problems I see. These I cannot state as being sloper faults, just fitting problems, and would have to be corrected no matter what pattern I would use..

Big men with "aprons" are best fitted with pleated slacks, as the pleats allow extra material for the "apron" area.

I am now finishing some 100% cotton, pull on, ankle length skirts for a lady who is a big & tall person, and feels most comfortable in skirts. These are not fitted, but well gathered at the waist. She loves these skirts, which we originally tried over a year ago for her as an experiment. I don't usually make womens clothes, but I originally started making her husband's clothes (he is a big mens 4x).

Needless to say, I buy a great deal of elastic (I buy better grade elastic at JoAnns by the box.)

I hunt >I am just posting this to share my experience -- I understand you are