First maternity dress: Vogue 2818

Thanks everyone for your helpful suggestions regarding maternity patterns and clothes - I feel lucky to be able to sew and to get advice from others so I know I'll get through this pretty well. Congratulations to your assistant Vicki, although I hope everything is alright with a 9 week early baby. If my baby comes out 9 weeks early it will come home to a construction zone - have I mentioned that we're about to demolish half of our house and rebuild? It'll be great when it's all done, but crazy timing I know!

I was especially interested in the Patrones and Ottobre magazines, although I can't say I've ever seen them here in Australia and it's not as if enough I don't waste, ahem, invest enough money in BWOF magazines! I might have to ebay trawl, although I haven't ebayed for over a year since I got a little out of control a way back and self imposed a ban.

Anyway I thought I would use up one of the maternity patterns since I had already purchased it, and so I made View D of the Vogue pattern, which is the ¾ quarter sleeve empire line dress pictured in the centre in black. I used a beautiful wool crepe I had in the stash (of course in black, again I am a sheep!), and fully lined the dress because in typical Vogue style the pattern is designed for only the bodice to be self lined and I don't like the static that comes from pantyhose rubbing against fabric. Because I didn’t use a fabric with moderate stretch as required by the pattern, I added a bit of extra ease to the bodice, and about 5cm extra width to the front skirt panel, and I made a few pleats to accommodate the extra width. Overall I’m very pleased with this dress, it’s so comfortable and looks very elegant, in an austere “I’m oh so serious” way. It was also very simple to make, I cut it out and finished sewing it in one afternoon, so I can see a few more versions in my near future, in more colourful fabrics and some lightweight fabric for summer.

The fabric is a pure black, I just lightened the photo a bit so you can see the details (photographing black is very difficult I find). And the dress goes very well with these black and white print shoes, which have a low sturdy heel, are very comfy and are still very wearable. I know I don’t look very pregnant in this photo, even though I’m feeling larger and round in the tummy since all my existing clothes (which I admit are slim fitting) are too snug now, and I’m sure I’m like this:
But if I adopt the infamous Nicole Kidman pose it’s a different story:

Anyway I wore this to work and got quite a few compliments on the new dress, so I’m extremely happy with my first real maternity dress!

My morning sickness seems to have subsided (although I still gag when brushing my teeth), and I have a bit more energy so things are looking up. Which is good, because I think I have consumed my weight in Arnotts milk arrowroot biscuits in the last three months combatting nausea.....