Seriously ... seriously ... just about three years ago, I thought I was a sturdy Flemish woman. No kidding. Folks, you never can tell what's under a lifetime of flubber.
Some days I read around the threads here and imagine that someone else will find that they really are small like me. It's exciting and I want them to DO IT!

I know exactly what you mean, except I was Olga the tractor-driving woman with 57" hips. ;)

Oh Meg ... the mental picture!

Self tanner applied to shins ;)

I was going to tell Susan to wear darker hose, but it occured to me that it's likely warmer where the rest of you are. :lol: My legs are always covered in bruises, and besides my pure white Irish skin never tans, only burns and peels! In contrast, my DH already has a tan. All he needs is about 10 minutes in the sun, I swear! Yesterday it was - finally - in the 60's here, and we ate lunch in our south facing deck. I'm sure he was darker after lunch....

I am the worst hose person! I'm the one who has to run to the dollar store the day of a party to find some ... wear them, wreck them and pitch them.

I belong to a charity group where we try to teach manners and such (via a mother-daughter tea). Three years ago, we finally voted to no longer require wearing hose! No one here likes them (especially when it gets over 120 degrees!). At my old job, we were allowed to go hose-less from Memorial day to Labor day only (regardless of the fact that it could be over 110 degrees outside of those dates).

UGH! I HATE pantyhose. I even buy them in queen size so they aren't as tight on my thunder thighs.

My first pair of shorts via eBay arrived today. They're Eddie Bauer size 4 and are a little big so I'll have to wear a belt. They were $1.50 plus shipping and still have the $24.95 tag on them.

If I had a quarter for every pair of shorts I've tried on in the last two years ... I coulda bought four pairs today :D. I finally found a pair that fit so I bought one of each colour ... black, light khaki and white. Midrise, 6 inch inseam.

Yesterday, I dropped off a dozen of DH's work shirts at Goodwill, so I said to myself, "what the heck, I'll go in and look for some shorts." I couldn't believe how many there were. Racks and racks of them and so many of them fit, even a few size 0! I settled on 2 pairs of denim and one pair of black denim. I'll still need to get some lighter weight shorts for the heat of August, but I'm thrilled to have some clothes that fit. The total cost: $7.48.

Today, I learned I am the high eBay bidder on a pair of Old Navy Kahki pants, a pair of Old Navy olive pants, and a Gap olive denim skirt. All size 4 so I hope they won't be too big due to vanity sizing. (Today, I'm wearing a Gap size 2 shorts that normally should be marked a 6) If not, I spent less than $10 on each of them so it's not a big deal.

Good work, Carolyn. :) My DH buys shirts at the thrift store all the time. He scored a Ralph Lauren plaid sports shirt for $2 not long ago!

Oh ... I coulda gone to the thrift store!
Today's haul was two tops, two belts, a skirt and two pairs of shoes. Metallic flats and a pair of casual sandals.
I'm liking some of the rouching (sp) that's happening, between the boobs or up the sides ... reminds me to stand up straight.

Yeah Susan, I'm happily wearing pair # 2 of the 3 pairs of shorts I bought at Goodwill. They look brand new and it's so nice to have something that fits.

Enjoy your new clothes.

DD and I spent the day at the mall buying her new clothes, shoes, purse and jewelry for her B-day. I bought myself 2 pr. of capris that I found on sale. It feels so good to find so many clothes that fit me and still wear the same size that I've worn since starting maintenance last summer. I even picked out 2 shirts for DH that were on sale. Woohoo, I just love to shop now.

The store was so crazy busy, that I didn't try the capris on til I got home. Both are size 5 in Jr. Miss. They fit perfect.

Yesterday, I went to Goodwill again in search of a pair of jeans that would come up to my waist, but not look like 'mom jeans'. After trying on 20 pairs, I found a pair of Calvin Kleins that fit perfect except that they need hemming. There were a few others that fit, but turned out to be low rise and I'm getting tired of always tucking my shirt back into my pants - that's if the shirt can even reach down to the 'waist' ban. When I complained to DH, he said, "you've got 'it' so flaunt it" meaning my stomach's looking good these days. I just don't feel that a 46 year old should be walking around exposing her tummy, no matter how good it might look.

Lily - I just don't know how you can pick out pants and not try them on until you get home. You either must have a really good eye for your style or I must have an odd shape to fit!

The 2 pairs of pant and 2nd pair of shorts that I ordered on eBay arrived yesterday. The Woolrich shorts fit great. I'm wearing them right now and am very pleased with them.

Both pants were a little big in the hips and thighs. I'm hoping a run through the washer and dryer will snug them up. The Old Navy olive pants turned out to be low rise but the Old Navy khaki come up to my belly button. Neither have belt loops, so if I lose any more weight, they won't fit.

Now that DH will be going back to work, I'll be able to start shopping in stores again. I'm excited about getting sundresses for the summer.

Carolyn, I used to wear Calvin Klein jeans all the time, but I haven't seen them in stores anywhere in quite a while. I don't know who carries them now.

I have an easy time picking out jeans or capris without trying them on. Medium rise, slim cut fit me best. (size 4 in women's or size 5 in Jr. 's always seem to fit.) Shirts are completely opposite, I have to try them on.

And I can look at a shirt and pretty much tell if it's gonna fit. Pants I have to try on.

Susan, I wish I could just look at shirts and know they would fit, but I can't. I have a horrible time finding shirts that fit and look good. My shoulders and rib cage are so broad that the shirts always seem to be flowing out over my tummy as if they were maternity shirts. I am just not very proportional. I guess that when I buy dressy blouses that I need to take and have them altered down the sides to make the waist fit better.

I'm collecting quite a stack of things that need to be altered. I do have a sewing machine and used to sew for DD all the time. Maybe I should have a look at some simpler things myself. Surely I could zip in the inseams of some scrub pants, shorten a shirt ...

You'd think because I'm an artist that incorporates sewing into my artwork, that I'd be able to alter clothing. Best I can do is hemming and button sewing. I've made a few clothes, but they all were from patterns.

Last night at swing dance I found that my 'new' Calvin Klein jeans are too stiff, so they're in the wash today to soften them up along with all my other recent acquistions that need some shrinking.

I think altering clothes is not the same! I make quilts all the time, but beyond hemming or repairing a seam I'm not much for alterations. :) Lately I can't buy anything without trying it on. While I know from looking that a shirt will fit, I can't judge the length well. I am so long waisted that the hip skimming styles just don't work for me! I love mail order catalogs that list the length of things. 23" just doesn't cut it! LLBean annoys me - "falls at hip" does nothing to tell me how long the shirt is, except it's longer than "falls at high hip." :rofl: I'm with Carolyn, I don't need/want to be exposing my skin in that area!

I've been trying not to buy much new, as I have a ton of stuff that I should be able to wear with another 5# loss - mostly I just can't button the waists on the pants. Now how to tell my body where to lose that 5#......

Susan, my sewing is fairly limited but I found that taking up the seams in scrubs wasn't too difficult. I hate, hate, hate sewing patches on my DS and DH's uniforms. I try to get them to take them to the cleaners to have it done, but alas, I usually get stuck with the job.

Pat, I'm fairly long waisted too and always have to watch how long my shirts are. Especially since my jeans are medium rise. I definitely will never expose my tummy. Best some things are kept covered.

I have so much loose skin now on what used to be my very fat upper arms. I haven't worn a sleeveless top since high school. (almost 30 yrs. ago). I just hate seeing fat or flabby arms in sleeveless shirts. Probably my biggest clothing pet peeve. Right up there with saggy boobs in skimpy shirts going braless. LOL.

Woo Hoo - More Shopping Fun
 

I'm here in Santa Fe and yesterday my DD drove up from Albuquerque to spend the day. Our favorite mother-daughter activity has always been shopping so that's what we did. :D

I wasn't going to get anything for me but there's an outlet mall right by the interstate with a Jones New York factory store. Jones always fits me well, so we went in. I found a fabulous jacket, beaded top, pants outfit at a riduculously low price - black brushed silk, black and white flowered jacket, really pretty. I love the pants because they sit on my hips, have a 3 inch band around the top, and no pockets.

But here's the odd thing: the jacket is a 4, the top underneath is a 6, and the pants are a 6 petite. Ordinarily I would have grabbed a 4 regular in the pants and they would have fit but needed to be hemmed. But there weren't 4s so I was trying on every other possibility and lo and behold, the 6 petite looks like it was tailored for me. Weird. Sizing is SO strange!

I love a good buy! :carrot:

Meg - you're new outfit sounds terrific. You better post so pix.

Yesterday, I went to TJ Maxx for the first time. I found the endless racks of clothing a bit overwhelming, so I concentrated on getting some tops that fit my newly thinned out torso. Everything I've been wearing is several sizes too big and swimming on me.

I found 3 that I liked plus a really cute spaghetti strap dress that I can wear swing dancing. It's causal enough for day but dressy enough for evening.

Lily? would you tell me how you altered scrubs? Please and thanks.

Susan, my MIL helped me and we took my scrubs up from an XL to about a medium. We just sewed along the seam with a sewing machine and then cut off the excess material. We used the outer seam on the scrub pants to make them smaller. Unfortunately, I had to quit working shortly after making the alterations. I ended up selling all my scrubs in our yard sale.

I took back some of the clothes that I received for Mother's Day because the shirts were too big. I couldn't find any other shirts I wanted, so I bought me some cute sandals instead. (As my puppy had chewed up my favorite sandals).

UGH ... they've got cargo pockets over the outseams!!!
I guess that wasn't a very good idea for a first try.
However, not all the cheap scrubs at WalMart do, so if I could find a nice colour just that they were too big ... I think I'd try. Even I should be able to do straight up the seam.
Thanks Lily.

clvquilts - TK Maxx rules! I got my prom dress there for twenty pounds! l'm so cheap ;)

Here in the UK it's all cropped denims. They make me look short (er!) lol. This is slightly offtopic, but I did put it in the clothes forum and no-one answered, so I thought I'd ask you guys about it. In clothes shops in the US, how prevalent is size 0? I mean, is it everywhere or just in some shops. I'm a writer and I'm doing an interview next week where I knnooow they're going to ask me to comment on this stuff cos of the book in question - so I'm just gathering a little info first - also, it true there's now such thing as *double* zero (mind boggles) and that US size 8 is now plus-size in some places? I 'm really hoping this isn't happening everywhere but just a few places.... thanks x

Off the top of my head ... 4's are common (Zellers, WalMart, Sears). 2's not so much. 0's are usually only in 'youngish' stores. I don't think I've every seen a 00.
In one of the 'youngish' stores I've been in lately, they had plenty of 14's.

Hi Me!

Let me take a stab at your questions. :)

Size 0 isn't very common. It's in some stores, but even then not everything will come in a 0. Most department store sizes stop at 4, though you may see a few 2's. I've never seen a 00 myself.

A size 8 is NEVER considered to be a plus size. Most regular sizes will go to 14 - 16 (I read that 14 is the most common size). There also are plus size 14's and 16's that fit differently, so there's a bit of an overlap there.

Ha! I see Susan snuck in before me and said pretty much the same things. :D

Jones New York factory store? Hmmm... :) I don't care for factory outlets but we are going to albuquerque in September and I love Jones New York!

Funny thing is the size 18s I'm wearing now were actually my goal for that September trip. Its a huge work conference with a lot of people both DH and I know and have worked with for many years.

Now all I have to do is get into the size 16s I have from New York and Company....

Thank you very much. That's basically the same as here, then, cos everywhere's got a UK 8 and some sixes...and I've heard of four though not seen it. I remember when all women wanted to be a 10! :( (ie US 6) Thanks again x

Size 0's and then 00's were introduced by stores owned by Limited brands first- The Limited, Express, then Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic, Ann Taylor and Ann Talor Loft. Concurrenty, they "upsized" everything a size. I went from wearing a 4 to wearing a 2 in the same exact pant one week last summer. I did not change. 0's have been around for a while- I have some from when my daughter was in high school that were hers and she graduated in 2001.

I've found the tiny sizes tend to be in either the "younger" trendier stores, or in the more expensive and designer lines. Talbots carries most of their clothes in 2 or 0 and that's certainly not a "young" store around here :lol: Nordstroms has 0's in their petites department and their designer sections. And those a REAL zeros. I can barely get my leg through the waist!

Mel

Oh I know, vanity sizing is so funny. I'm a smaller dress size than my mum ever was but some of the waists on her college clothes are like bracelets! Maybe 20 years from now we'll only have minus numbers, with exactly same measurements as today,and then everybody can tiny! ;). *Ends threadjack with thanks*

I figured out the 00 thing in at least one store. Suzy Shier is a chain of 'youngish' affordable clothing around here. Most of their stuff is a slash size. 7/8, 13/14 etc so there is a 1/2 and the next size smaller is 00

BTW ... they have 3 or 4 styles of great coloured t-shirts on sale 2/$15 right now. The kelly green and red are lovely.

My eBay ordered size 4 Gap skirt finally arrived yesterday and it's too big. So my online shopping only worked 2 out of 5 tries. But the total price I paid for 5 items was less than if I had bought just one in a store.

Carolyn,

You can always resell them on Ebay. I always do that if I've bought something that turns out not to fit.

But you need to start buying smaller clothes! You're small!

Baffled - DH started his new job on Tuesday so we'll have the first paycheck in 3 months in a few weeks. Then I can go 'real' clothes shopping. I did get some jeans and shorts that fit at Goodwill and some shirts at TJMaxx plus a really cute sundress that I wore to the Memorial Day cocktail party at our yacht club. But I froze in it even with a coat on.

Finding clothes small enough has been a problem. With vanity sizing varing from label to label, it's hard to find things to fit. There are plenty of women who are skinnier than me. I look at them now and think, "hmm, where do they shop?"

Yesterday DD and I spent several hrs. shopping at the mall for swimsuits. I had earlier bought a tankini suit that I ended up not really liking after wearing it once to the lake. I tried on a total of 14 swimsuits before I bought one. My DD must have tried on at least 25 of them. I tried several that had the little skirt thing on the bottom and I just didn't like them. Felt like I'd be swimming in a dress. LOL. My biggest problem was finding one that had a little support on the top. I ended up buying a one-piece that is dark brown with a little gold circle on the lower part of the waist. It is not fancy, but the fit was right. My previous swimsuit that I bought (2 yrs. ago) was a size 14 and it was literally falling off of me. This one is a size 8. (Since I normally wear a size 10-12 in shirts, I didn't think an 8 would fit in a swimsuit). Sizes are just so crazy that it really does require me to try on tons of stuff before I buy anything. I got this one at JC Penney's and it has the longitude/latitude control so holds the tummy nice and flat. Gotta love that. My legs aren't really the problem so the skirt thingie really isn't necessary for me. Now if they would just put some little sleeves in the arms to cover up my flabby upper arms, I'd look just dandy in a swimsuit. LOL.

UGH! Shopping for bathing suits is the worst thing. I've only looked through a few racks and didn't even want to try on what I saw. I'm thinking I'll try to fix the elastic in the bottoms of my size 12 suits that I love and shorten the rib cage straps on the tops. Wish me luck with the needle and thread.

Today, we're going to a college graduation party and I'm wearing my new sundress. I feel so thin and young in it.