On Being a Gift: Test Knitting as a Fat Person

Preface from Jen and Bess

Christina Socorro Yovovich is one of the bright lights in the knitting community. She has written this piece for us. Thanks to her generosity in sharing, here at One Wild we're continuing to refine our policies to be more inclusive.

Christina wrote to us to share her experience test knitting for another designer. We deeply appreciate Christina's tenderness and vulnerability in sharing this with us, and as we reflected on her experience, we wanted to examine our own practices. Today, we're sharing Christina's story, and then our own reflection.

From New Sewist to New Knitter

I volunteered to test knit for The Designer because I've been an admirer of theirs pretty much since I started knitting in January of 2023. Once I became interested in knitting, after spending the year before learning to sew garments, I started to look for independent knitting designers I could trust.

In sewing, I'd quickly learned that my fat body was too fat for many, even designers who served fat sewists. I joined a community for those learning to sew, only to have to ask for a refund a day later when I realized none of their plus sized patterns were big enough for my 65-inch hips. It was a relief to find Muna and Broad, a small company consisting of Jess and Leila, two fat women who are fat activists as well as designers and sewists. Their patterns had an aesthetic that I loved, included my size, and also included an offer to grade any pattern up for free if someone was larger than their size range. Also, they were teaching patterns, as they recognized that many fat people have historically not learned to sew garments because patterns didn't fit them. As I learned from them, being truly size-inclusive means educating, to counteract the effects of being disenfranchised from fashion and from making.

It didn't take long for me to see that there isn't an exact Muna and Broad equivalent in the knitting world, but I kept looking for designers I could trust with my body and my time. I knew, even before I tackled my first sweater, that knitting was a much more profound time commitment than sewing, and I didn't want to throw that time into a garment that didn't fit me, not if I could help it.

Feeling Seen

The Designer was the first I encountered who made me feel seen. As a fat neurodiverse woman of color, I was drawn to The Designer, who was a queer neurodiverse person of color who stated their commitment to being size-inclusive. I joined their Kofi with great enthusiasm and made plans to knit one of their patterns as my first sweater.

I still haven't made that sweater. Back in February of 2023, I studied the pattern and realized I didn't understand half the things it wanted me to do, didn't even understand them enough to search out YouTube tutorials, and the pattern wasn't a teaching pattern. It expected me to know things.

I put it aside and chose a cardigan pattern that I could tell wouldn't be a perfect fit for my body, but as a series of connected rectangles would be a good way for me to learn. And I did learn. I finished the worsted weight wool cardigan right as the summer heat set in, so I couldn't wear it for more than 5 minutes at first, but the pride I felt during those minutes!

Becoming a Gift

Eventually my search brought me to other designers who also seemed like people I could trust with my body and my time, most notably Jen and Bess of One Wild Designs. My second sweater was the Classic LBD tee, designed by Jen, and its instructions, which aimed to educate, allowed me to figure things out and to learn how to make something that would fit my particular body.

By then it was full summer, and I had formed the strong desire to test-knit. I wanted to be a test-knitter for a lot of reasons. First, I had a deep longing for community. I didn't know any knitters in town, so I turned to the internet, both to find yarn and to find community. I thought test-knitting for a size inclusive designer might be a good way to meet other knitters of all sizes.

Second, I wanted to offer up myself and my services to help size inclusive designers and other fat knitters. I figured as a self-taught (or, internet taught) adventurous beginner with 65-inch hips, I could help designers to figure out if their instructions worked for newer knitters, and also if their grading fit fat bodies like mine.

I saw myself, my skills and my body, as a gift I had to give the knitting community. And that felt lovely, because as a woman of over 300 pounds, it isn't often I'm given the chance to present my fat self as a gift. Usually I'm considered too big, an inconvenience at best and someone who shouldn't exist at worst. I liked being a gift.

A Whim and a Hope

I became a UX Knitter for Jen of One Wild and found the experience to be exactly what I'd hoped. And my skills increased to the extent that when I looked over the instructions for The Designer's sweater, I thought, hey, I think I could figure this out now.

And then The Designer started sharing photos for a new test knit. I volunteered on a delightful, glorious whim. I filled out the application while my husband drove the car one Friday morning and whooped when I got an acceptance a mere 10 minutes later. Truly, I felt I'd achieved an item on my bucket-list. I was test knitting for The Designer.

Pretty quickly it became clear to me that the experience wouldn't be everything I'd hoped. The Slack channel for the test knit was less active and chatty than I was expecting. It seemed that finding community wouldn't be a large part of the experience. I accepted that, and kept working, still enjoying the process itself.

I'd never done lace before, and the test knit had a small amount of it. I was confused by the pattern instructions at first. With some puzzling, and thought, I figured some stuff out, and then went to the Slack and asked The Designer if they'd be open to feedback from a beginner at lace, about some instructions that I would have found useful. I got a reply that startled me. No, they told me. They weren't interested in that feedback because their patterns were not for beginners.

Losing Heart

At this point I lost a lot of heart. I had offered my perspective as a beginner, only to find out the perspective wasn't wanted. I wondered why I'd been accepted to the test knit at all. But I kept going, and I still took pleasure in the work of knitting itself. I lost the rest of my heart for the process once the test-knit was finished and blocked. I'd tried it on before blocking and was surprised by how short it was. The Designer had expressed surprise about this too on the Slack. But after I blocked it, the test-knit grew 3.5 inches longer, which delighted me. I tried it on and felt fantastic. My husband snapped some photos where my joy was evident, right before I wore it to a holiday party where I received compliments, and exclamations that I'd made it myself.

I posted the photos to The Designer's Slack, along with some comments about the details of what I'd done and what the measurements were, and how much I liked it. I also shared the photos privately on a couple other private online spots, including the One Wild Slack. I got positive feedback quickly from those other private spots online. People told me I was glowing, and that the dress looked great. More than one person said they were looking forward to buying the pattern when it was released because of how it looked on me. I put together a Ravelry page for it. I filled out the feedback form, giving permission for my photos to be shared. I felt good.

But I never heard anything from The Designer about the finished product. Literally nothing. At first I told myself it was Sunday and they likely were not working. Be patient, I told myself. But then it was Monday, and still nothing. I went on the Slack and saw others had posted their finished photos after me, and that The Designer was online and giving them feedback and compliments. Just wait, I told myself. They'll get to your post.

But my post never received any feedback from them. No emoji. No questions or critiques. No compliments. The knitters who posted their makes on Monday and got feedback from The Designer had smaller bodies than mine. I can't help but feel that my fatness has something to do with that contrast, with the crickets I received. I thought I was offering The Designer a gift, and it seems that gift was useless to them. "Never meet your heroes," I told my husband, as I described the whole experience.

A Feeling Precious and Rare

My test-knit is beautiful, and I feel good when I wear it. It makes me feel like myself. And as a fat woman, having clothes that make me feel like myself is precious, and rare, and mostly I must make those clothes myself if I want to have this feeling. But I also don't like taking mistreatment silently. As a person with PTSD, it feels wrong in every way not to speak out. I deleted my Ravelry page for the test-knit and rescinded my permission to have my photos shared as marketing.

The design has been a success, is my impression. I've been seeing a lot of knitters on social media posting about making it. I received an email from The Designer a couple weeks after I submitted my feedback to them about the test-knit process. They apologized for overlooking me, and said they planned to hire a moderator for their Slack, to make sure a similar situation didn't repeat itself. I also noticed that when the pattern came out, a photo of a fat knitter was one of the ones prominently shared, not tucked in the back of a long series of photos of testers.

I hope The Designer keeps designing and being size inclusive and having success. I also hope they work even harder at being inclusive towards their fat testers, especially the ones like me who are on the larger end of the fat spectrum. I won't be testing for them again. But I'm sure other fat folks will, and I don't want their gifts treated as shabbily as mine was.

Christina Socorro Yovovich

Christina Socorro Yovovich grew up in Wisconsin, but has called New Mexico home since 1998. Her list of publications can be found here. She spends her days pursuing joy through the fiber arts and writing.

 

A Note from One Wild

Thank you Christina, for trusting us with your story. Even though neither of us is "the Designer," we are choosing to take this feedback as if it were for ALL designers, and to reflect on our own responsibility to knitters. Inclusion has always been at the heart of our operations, but we think we can never be done questioning what else is possible.

Our biggest action item to come out of this reflection is based on Christina's point that knitters in larger bodies begin behind the starting line when it comes to getting a great fit, and may be less likely to be advanced knitters because of systemic issues that discourage them from becoming clothing makers. Here's what we plan to emphasize in the future.

—Investing in additional "Classics Collection" patterns - and making them easy to shop on our website. These patterns are written to help knitters become more skilled - they're written with more detail in how to proceed, and include at least two modifications in the base pattern. They're traditional silhouettes - but each one has a modern take. We've given those patterns their own category on our website so that knitters can navigate right to them. You can expect to see more Classics this spring and in fall of '24.

—Clarified our intended audience - we're designing for someone who is making their second sweater. We think it's important not to compromise on the techniques needed to get a great result, so we know that a knitter might not think of us for their first sweater. But we want to make sure that someone who's been knitting other projects and tackled one of those easy/free patterns to get the lay of the land can open a One Wild pattern and have all the tools they need to be successful.

—Planning for a range of experience levels in each collection. We're on a year-long development schedule, so this probably won't be evident right away, but we are now planning collections to include at least one pattern that is extremely approachable for knitters just learning to knit, or just learning to fit.

Thanks so much for joining us in seeing Christina and hearing her story. If you have thoughts, we'd love to hear them and to continue the conversation with you - leave us a comment.