the great wardrobe de-clutter

Cleaning out one's wardrobe is something that should be done regularly, after all tastes change, body shapes change and us humans do have a tendency to acquire more and more things. I have a special reason to have a clean out: besides the fact that nothing more could fit in my wardrobe, nearly 75% of what I own no longer fits or shortly won't fit.

So I sorted my wardrobe into pregnancy and non-pregnancy friendly outfits, and at the same time managed to clean out three bags of clothes to take to the op-shop for them to continue their circle of life elsewhere. I also came across some clothes that I hadn't worn in quite some time, but were ripe for a re-fashion.

First up is a black and white pinstripe pants suit that I hadn't worn for a long time because it is starting to get shiny from wear in certain spots, but has a few more months life left in it. The jacket is a looser cut that will fit over my expanding belly with buttons un-done, so I decided to cut off the waistband in a lower v at the front, and replace it with a wide band made from a stretchy cotton knit that I can wear folded over under belly style, or pulled up if I'm wearing a shorter top.

And voila, I have a maternity pants suit that cost me nothing since I used stretch fabric from the stash, and in fact I salvaged the zipper and hook+eye from the pants, so I'm almost ahead!

Next along, I re-discovered this jacket I made over a year ago in a lovely wool/lycra mix fabric in black with a herringbone weave. I made it to wear with a dress I made from Vogue 8280 (the Roland Mouret galaxy dress knockoff), but the jacket turned out less than stellar so hasn't had much wear at all. The jacket is made from Vogue 8319, which in illustration is a lovely jacket, but mine turned out rather awkward, with the collar band sticking out and refusing to sit flat. I'm not on my own here, I read Shannon's frustration with the same issue on her version over on her blog.

Anyway, to fix it I moved the button positioning (I used snaps under a giant button) so that the collar band sat in a bit of a v-neck position at the front where they lapped over. This causes the neckline to sit flat against my chest, but the lower front panels jut open but since my belly will soon be poking out anyway I'm fine with that.

And I happened to have just enough of the same fabric left over to make a skirt, so I whipped one up from Vogue 2818, the maternity wardrobe pattern I made the dress from. This took me about an hour start to finish it's that simple, but it's also verrrrry fugly! It has a panel at the front which is designed to go over the belly, so it sits very high waisted, and for some reason there is heaps of width across the back, so the elastic waist gathers in an almost paperbag style. As far as I know I shouldn't develop a bump on my back as big as my front, so I don't see why so much room is required back there at the waist line.

But I did wear it to see if comfort would outweigh fugliness, because evenutally my belly will be so bif there will be no gathering at the waistline. However, I spent all day scrunching it down when I sat because it felt very uncomfortable across my waist, and pulling it up when I stood up to walk around. I now realise that over belly styles are not for me at all, so I cut a fair bit of the top of the skirt at both front and back, and replaced it with another wide waistband made from black stretch knit, again in a doubled over style. Much better!

And here it is, another maternity skirt suit that again cost me nothing except fabric from the stash and a bit of time to give new life to an existing garment.