Maternity sewing

Of the many pairs of leggings I have been making lately two of these have been for my DIL who is expecting in November.

I used the Pattern 4 Pirates add-ons (thank you P4P for not calling these hacks) for different styles of maternity waistbands that can be used in conjunction with the Peg Legs pattern. Note again both the Peg Legs and the add-on patterns are free.

Maddie liked the over the belly waist so these two pair, made in some lovely Supplex from Halo Fabric Addicts again, used that option.

I am going to show these out of interest for both those who might want to sew maternity leggings and for those who won't ,because the construction is interesting.

For a start the Peg Legs have a deep waist band, and like the Clara's really, have a short front crotch seam to accommodate that. Kind of weird when you are making both of these patterns up if you try them on before you have attached the waistband because it feels and looks at first as if these units aren't going to be high enough to cover anything much less a belly and the distance up to the waist.

But you attach the waistband and what do you know, they do.

Having this deep dip in the front means it is so easy to switch these up for maternity sewing. The Peg Legs maternity add-on is really a very deep front waistband with a little self fabric knit band stitched onto the top.

Now these look really weird I know, hanging on a barn door in the basement, and they will look better in pictures that Maddie has said she will send, but there is hopefully still some educational, and certainly some humour value in these shots.

Love this fabric, this is a side view so you can see how the front waist dips down and the wide overbelly waistband comes up. We will cut this down to make a postnatal pair later if we want.

Long and skinny but hopefully comfortable
And here is another pair in a lighter colour so you can see the waistband seam and the band at the top a little better:

I top stitched the seam allowances down with a triple zig zag on this pair more or less for my own entertainment

Now to go with the leggings I made some tops. 

I used Love Notions famous Laundry Day tee. I wanted to try this out for myself and figured doing a size small for Maddie would give me some sense of how it might look. This pattern has quite a swing to the hem, despite being fitted through the shoulders, which I thought would make it work for a maternity top basic.

I added 2" in length over all and an additional 2" to the centre front hem tapering that up to the side seams. As you get bigger that front hem pulls up and that centre front dip down in the hem is useful.

Here are the tops, it is interesting how they all look slightly different because they are each made in different fabrics. The grey one is cotton single knit, the white one bamboo, and the navy one is rayon knit:

Since I was on a sewing, neglecting all other aspects of life roll, I decided to also make a replacement skirt for one that got lost in Maddie's travels - the Jalie Lisette again lengthen to 30" with a centre back seam added and a 12" walking slit. I added a little to the width of the waist and left out the elastic in the front waistband and put it only in the back:

I have to give a shout out to Stonemountain in Berkeley for sending me the exact same fabric I made the original in. I sent them a picture of Maddie in the original skirt and they put the same fabric in the mail to me and I got it in a few days - pretty impressive I thought. Another reason why I love them.

I also played around with one more top, a striped cotton lycra knit (yes I know the stripes are not matched on the sleeves - I had to really scramble to find fabric to cut them out at all - the lower front of this pattern is doubled - a long gathered piece attached to a shorter under piece). I used this pattern, and added 2" to each side of the bottom of both bodice pieces and the 2" to the centre front of the hem like I did with the Laundry Day tee. I am completely enumerate and once I come up with a number I like to stick with it and apply it everywhere. 

This pattern also includes a modesty panel thing that I originally had made and was going to apply then I decided we didn't need it. I sewed in some clear elastic ever so slightly stretched along the sides of the V neckline under the binding and I felt that was enough to do to prevent gaping.

I also made Maddie a swimsuit using the First Crush pattern from Rad Patterns. Not a bad maternity pattern at all (they also sell a non maternity version) but the instructions were apparently written for Harry Houndini to execute so I sort of had to throw those out the window (sort of literally) and applied what I have learned from other swimsuit construction.

More on those details in next month's swimsuit sew-along.

Here is a front view and a side view, to show you how maternityesque it is, fabric again from my mega order from Halo:

Finally I even remembered that my daughter-in-law is married and who she is married to is my oldest son.

You know the one I promised I would make him a shirt for his birthday March 30.

So I finished that too and put it in the package to keep up appearances. 

So folks when this blog goes dark for a few days this is why. I made this batch of garments over about a 10 day period and sort of like living like that.

However if any of you would like to drop by however and fold a bit of laundry or do a few floors ... those jobs are still outstanding.

In the meantime more to say on sewing along leggings over the next few days!