maternity clothes

Let me start by saying I have issues with maternity clothes. Therefore I am halfway convinced that I would like to try to get through my pregnancy buying as few "maternity" items as possible, and instead search out items other places that are cut a little more roomy. So far I have had pretty good luck finding things I think will work, at least I am hoping they will be able to last until August. Forever 21 has been great for tops and a lot of the chain stores have more blousy tops as part of their spring lines.

The thing that bothers me most about the maternity wear out there is that it seems like the affordable stuff is not cute and really bad quality and the cute stuff is ridiculously expensive. I seriously want to start my own company and make affordable, cute, decent quality maternity wear because so far I am not convinced it exists. Oh and the sizing is all weird too.

Anyway, this is what lead me to latest project. I have lots of pants I like and I wear all the time, and I decided that rather than buy items I don't like to wear while I am pregnant, I'd rather take items that I do like and make them work, and buy new stuff after I am pregnant, hence my first pair of maternity pants. This was so easy, but if you are not the crafty type, I am pretty sure you can take any pair of pants to a tailor and they can convert them for you. Here is the step by step.

1. Choose the pants.

I took a pair of my favorite J. Crew White boot cut jeans. These were one of my favorites last summer and I thought I could get a lot of pregnancy wear out of them.

2. Remove the waistband

Next I carefully removed the waistband with a seam picker. I was surprised how easy this came off, and according to some other sources a tailor could add this back on later post pregnancy.

3. Determine what kind of waistband you want.

Once I cleaned out all the little threads I was ready to make my waistband. I recommend buying either cotton Lycra or spandex from your fabric store. Depending on your waist size, a 1/2 yard should be enough to do at least one, possibly two waistbands. There are a few ways to construct the waistband so if you have a favorite pair of maternity pants already, look at how their waist band was made or go to your local maternity store and study their waistbands to look at options. I myself opted for a cotton Lycra one that I could fold over now and would give me plenty of coverage once the belly starts to swell. You can decided if you want to sew in an elastic band at the top or not. I opted not to because I don't like things too tight around my waist. The thickness of the waist band will depend on how high you want it to come up, once again look at other maternity pants for options. Measure your belly at the widest part now, and remember your belly will stretch but so will the fabric. Give your self a little extra room, but be careful not to cut it more than a few inches larger because you don't want your pants falling down.

4. Construct the waist band.

Once you have your fabric cut to the measurement of our waist +2/3 inches, fold inside out and sew along edge twice, once with a straight stitch and again with a zigzag stitch or serger if you have one, to finish the edge. Make sure the seam is tight and test it by stretching the fabric. Depending on what kind of waist band you elected to do, you will either sew in elastic at the the top of the waistband at this point, or if you are making them like I did, turn the waistband right side out (you will want the total thickness of the waistband to be about 12-18 inches if you are doing this type and fold half into the inside of the circle so that you have two layers of fabric.

5. Attach to pants

Depending on your sewing skills, this will be either an easy step of the process, or the tricky part, but either way, definitely doable. Line the unfinished edges of the waist band up with the exposed edges of your pant so that the waist band is around the waist of the band almost like a belt. Being careful to match up the edges sew a straight stitch along the edge giving about a 1/4 inch- 1/2 inch selvage. Once you have sewn all the way around, finish the selvage with either a zigzag stitch or by serging the exposed selvage. Double check that once again the seams are tight and strong and voila! Here you have you very own maternity pants, sure to be cuter than anything you could buy at the store and they only cost you about $5 in fabric and 1/2 hour of your time.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask, I may start a new blog with some of my non maternity but wearable with pregnant belly fashion finds if any of you would be interested.

*blouse and seersucker pants from Gap maternity

*white denim jeans from J. Crew