Maternity Sewing

At the beginning of my pregnancy (and before I got pregnant) I had grand visions of all of the maternity clothes I was going to sew for myself - Megan Nielsen's maternity patterns, clothes from the DIY Maternity blog, and other things I'd seen on the internet.  In the end, even though my pregnancy was for the most part easy and super-smooth, I was really tired and I didn't have the energy or the time to sew much of anything.

I ended up sewing one thing from scratch (the Cordelia maternity camisole from So, Zo) and re-making one thing (a pair of black maternity slacks from a pair of regular non-maternity pants).  These pictures were taken at about 34 or 35 weeks of pregnancy.

For the pants, I referred to a few tutorials on the internet, but mostly modeled them off of a pair of maternity jeans I bought at Goodwill.  The jeans had a wide elastic waistband in a knit casing that felt like cotton spandex.  I used about a yard of 2-inch elastic that I already had on hand and some black 90% cotton/10% spandex knit that I got at JoAnn.  I bought a pair of Banana Republic stretch wool pants from ThredUp (the same brand and a similar style to the three pairs of pants I've been wearing to work for the past few years) two sizes larger than I usually wear.

I picked out the zipper and removed the waistband of the pants, and then I marked out and stitched along a curve in front that would fit under my belly.  I topstitched down what remained of the fly.  Then I cut a piece of jersey about 9 inches long and the width of the new waist opening of the pants and serged it into a tube.  I checked the length of the elastic around my belly and sewed the ends together (overlapping them about an inch).  Then I folded the new waistband in half, right sides out, and slipped in the elastic, then zig-zagged along the lower edge of the elastic, through all 3 layers, to hold it in place and keep it from twisting later.  I serged the new waistband to the pants opening, pressed the seam allowance toward the pants, and finished by topstitching to stabilize the pants and hold the seam allowance in place.

Then I wore the pants two or three times a week until the end of the semester.  For most of my pregnancy, wide elastic waistbands like the one on these pants were more comfortable for me than the full belly panels.  But for the last few weeks, my belly was big enough that it was pushing these waistbands down, and I found the full panels more comfortable.  Luckily, that change happened right about at the end of the semester, at the same time that a church friend who had her baby lent me several pairs of full panel jeans, so because I no longer needed to dress up to teach, I could just wear those most of the time.

The camisole was another piece that I wore all the time - I had a few sweaters that I wore with this underneath.  I made a straight size 14, and the construction was pretty quick and straightforward.  I was a little nervous about the foldover elastic, but this tutorial was helpful, and in the end it wasn't too bad.  I used cheap foldover elastic from JoAnn, and it hasn't washed and worn as well as you'd hope.  Next time, I would order higher quality elastic online. 

I really like this pattern.  The camisole was really comfortable - I like the wide bottom hem band, and there was plenty of room for my belly to be comfortable until the very end of my pregnancy. 

Me-Made-May 2018

My Me-Made May pledge this year was to sew for myself every day until the baby was born - and I succeeded! (Technically, I didn't sew the day before he was born, but I was admitted to the hospital that afternoon, so I'm giving myself a pass.)  The baby was born closer to mid-May than late May, and most days I sewed for less than an hour, but I still got a fair amount done.  I started with this Washi dress.  I lined the bodice and made it snap up the front so it's breast-feeding friendly.  I almost finished it - at the end of my challenge I was just waiting for the hot pink snaps I ordered to arrive in the mail.

Next, I moved on to a knit dress.  I cut out all of the pieces for a Turn About the Room dress from the DIY Maternity blog.  I made the front skirt panels a bit narrower than the pattern specifies, because I intend it to be a nursing dress, not a maternity dress - I think it will be great with a nursing camisole under it.  It should be pretty quick to sew up on the serger once I get around to it.

And last but not least, the best thing I made this May:

(This will be the only baby photo I post on this blog - we have a no photos on social media or the public internet policy.)