[Mama_Knowles]

I was wondering if any of you gals have ever sewn maternity clothes? If so what patterns did you use?

I am expecting baby #5 right now and all my clothes are getting tight at only 9 weeks! (I hate to think of how big I am going to get at this point,lol)I need some bigger clthes and woul dlove to be able to make my own this time around.

Sharon

[Violaisabelle]

Yes I did, but my patterns are very old and no longer available in stores. 🙂 I have 6 children so I was always adding to my wardrobe since things did wear out. I was making nursing clothes, long before patterns were addressing the need for nursing options. 🙂

By now, you probably have a very good idea of how you carry your baby weight when pregnant. Keeping that in mind, you could alter every day patterns for maternity.

If you have any of the Lisette patterns and you are comfortable with altering the patterns, you could easily add some of these patterns into a maternity wardrobe. The Portfolio dress, for example, you could take the center panel and add fabric there, giving you more tummy room. If you need more back width for hips, you could add to the side seams, either just in back or in front and back. The passport dress would be a good option, too.

The Continental pattern would be a great pattern to alter. You could mimic the back style of the pattern to the front, giving you more room in the belly. The dress could easily be altered to add more fabric to both front and back. The skirt could be altered with a belly band, all the way around, giving you growth room.

Things to keep in mind when altering your patterns is to know that the front of the garment is going to need more width and length, to cover the belly. That means lengthening your front, so that when your belly gets bigger, you will have room to cover it. If your back side grows as well, you will need to add in extra ease there, too.

I always found it best to have ‘early’ maternity clothes and ‘later’ maternity clothes since I would inevitably grow 2 to three sizes during pregnancy (my boys were all big babies). If you find that might be the case for you, you may want to think about having a few early maternity close you can nurse in, after baby is born…provided you plan on nursing.

Do a Google search on how to alter patterns into maternity styles and I suspect you will come up with some good resources.

Have fun and enjoy this wonderful season.

Carol

[Mama_Knowles]

Thanks for the great ideas!! I do have all teh Lisette patterns and I think they would make very stylish mommy to be clothes.

I love the idea of early on clothes too. I have gotten very big with all my kiddos and seeing that I am already haveing a hard fitting into pants and skirts not being far along at all.I will give a tpo a go this weekend!!

Thanks Carol!

Sharon

[JohannaO]

I’m six months along with our fourth, and I’m still wearing my Lisette Portfolio dresses that I made before being pregnant with some leggings. I’m still getting compliments on those, and if I had a free moment, I would probably make up two or three more. I’m hoping to get another month or two out of them.

I just made some maternity pants using this tutorial-http://grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com/2009/09/maternity-pants-tutorial.html

and it would probably work just as well for pants that you have constructed from scratch. I probably didn’t make my jersey as tight as I could have, but I’m expecting to be huge in a little bit.

I came across these patterns last week, and they look like great basics to build into a maternity wardrobe-

http://shop.megannielsen.com/category/sewing-patterns

There is also a great round up of maternity sewing tutorials here-

http://www.luvinthemommyhood.com/2010/03/maternity-sewing-tutorial-roundup.html

[Rpankow]

Sharon:

I was on another blog and I thought of your question. I hope this helps and congratulations on you’re addition!

http://shop.megannielsen.com/category/sewing-patterns

Rebecca

[meleliza]

I have two unused maternity patterns I never got around to making. You’re welcome to them if you like. Butterick 5196 a twist front dress or top for knits or wovens sizes 16-24 and simplicity 3645 which is a scrub pattern with a maternity option. Looks boring on the model, but I thought it could be made more interesting with the right fabric or trims. Size 14-22. I want to purge my stash and I won’t need these anymore! Send me a message and if you want them and I’ll mail them to you.

Also, I made the Mariposa top/dress from Anna Maria Horner several times for maternity and nursing. Got lots of compliments.

[Liesl Gibson]

I haven’t tried it yet, but when Giulia was expecting and we were developing the first collection of Lisette patterns I told her I thought she could probably convert the Portfolio Dress to a maternity dress. Just position the center panel (the one with the gathers) so the Cut on Fold line is 4″ or 5″ from the actual fold but still parallel to it. Continue the top and bottom cut lines of the piece right up to the fold. By doing this you’re essentially adding a lot of fullness to the piece (8″-10″ depending on the distance you choose), and my one concern is that there will be too much fullness at the top near the bust and the little patch. But I think it would be fun to try. We were too busy at the time to actually try it, but I’d love to see photos if you do it!

[Liesl Gibson]

Oh, and by the way, the Lisette model just told me she wants to model some maternity for us. So who knows–maybe we’ll do maternity one of these days!

[Violaisabelle]

Liesl, I was going to give info on how to do it, but I couldn’t remember if that pattern piece was a 1/2 (on the fold) or a full pattern piece…I now see it’s a 1/2 pattern piece. 🙂

In regards to how much to add for this, If I were doing this, I think I would start at 2 or 3″ back from the fold as that gives an additional 4″-6″ through the belly and depending on how big one gets in the belly, this could be a lot, or not enough. The pattern already has some good ease to it.

Regarding the upper portion of this pattern piece and the fullness, again, if I were doing this, I might be tempted to ‘pinch out’ some of that fullness, *before* I actually put the pattern on the fabric, reducing how much fullness would be there. This would especially depend on the type of fabric I choose.

I made this pattern up, twice, in some lovely Ponte de Roman knit fabric, but found the gathers were a bit more than what I would like, just as is. The knit fabric is a stable knight, so it was not as soft of a drape as I would like, but very much enjoyed working with the pattern and the fabric was great for the dress, with that one exception.

I have little time do to all that I would like or share ( probably the same for most of us). 😉 One of the projects that I am part way through assembling in pattern stage is a combo dress of the Portfolio with the Continental dress. I wanted more of those great pockets, so I was combining the center front panel from the Portfolio pattern, and lining it up with the side portion of the continental dress. I actually eliminated the top detail, took out some fullness, and took the panel all the way to the neckline. This style would also be very good for maternity, either in a dress or tunic style.

I will be getting a daughter-in-law this next year, so perhaps I will have the opportunity to make some maternity clothes in the not too distant future and test out some designs running around in my head. 🙂

Carol

[Mama_Knowles]

Thank you ladies for all the wonderful sites and advice!!

I am hoping to make it to the fabric store later today and try the portfolio top first. I am in much need of tops right now already, I think this will make a get maternity top/dress! I am working on a plan to make the pants maternity too, I would love to have very lovely maternity clothes this time around! I will post pictures as I finish them.

Thank you Carol and Liesl!!

I love the ideas on the tutorails for the clothes as well, I amd thinking about trying to make a few tshirts from these! and I seen some fab patterns on the web site thank you Rebecca!

[Mama_Knowles]

meleliza, Could I buy the patterns off of you? I would love that!

My email is mama_knowles03@yahoio.com

Thanks Sharon

[rastis]

Yes! I made most of my maternity clothes…. One of the patterns I really liked was Kwik Sew 3326- the top pattern is quite nice (see here http://www.kwiksew.com/catalog/cat_detail.cfm?pid=3326&Cat=Misses&Level=Maternity&QL=MissMat )

I also used my favourite skirt pattern New Look 6345- view D(non maternity) http://www.simplicity.com/p-2306-misses-skirts.aspx and instead of a zippered back and yoke, I just used 2 front pieces and sewed stretchy fabric to the top (to stretch around the belly)… I made LOTS of the skirt- short and long versions… very quick and easy and flattering… My favourites were made from a stretch courduroy so stayed slim fitting, despite being quite enormous!

I made other things as well, but they were my favourites! good luck 🙂

[Tamara]

I did some maternity sewing when expecting my first but only a few pieces as I grew too huge too fast and didn’t have the knowledge to successfully enlarge a pattern. I still have them to use and I did use them with my second but I would count them as around the house type wear because the sewing isn’t great.

I was thinking about what Liesl suggested about the Portfolio dress and the possibility that the gathers may look strange too close to the chest.

You could really play around here with this style to get the look (or different looks) you want. What if you used the gathers as a feature by sewing coloured lines of stitching across it to a) make a feature and b)hold the gathers down so they don’t look funny? You could even add the top square to the middle piece and pleat it and then backsmock (smock on the back using cable) and embellish with embroidery stitches (or buttons) on the front.

This could be something you could really have lots of fun with.

Tamara

[meleliza]

I miss maternity clothes! That wonderfuk ripe belly and the amazing bust! I had such cute things. Post maternity just never looks good. 🙁

[rastis]

oh yes the post maternity jelly belly is a little depressing… that is my world at the moment… not inspired to sew for myself until the baby weight is gone… i envy those women who lose weight breastfeeding… it’s never happened for me 🙁