Valentine's Day shenanigans

This is the card I wanted to buy for my husband for Valentine's Day.  Only $2.95 at Typo.  Sadly however the Sydney city store had sold out - I guess there are a lot of people who share my bah humbug attitude! But then Anna came home from daycare with two yummy cupcakes that the kids had made and decorated that day and I *cough* accidentally ate both of them before her dad came home, I had a change of heart and we baked him a cake:

Sadly for him (but good for me) he's on a diet, since he never really lost his baby weight from the first time around.  And even luckier for me is that in this pregnancy I've gained much less weight this time around, in fact I'm at the lower end of the recommended weight gain range so I feel free to indulge a little! Here's my latest belly bump photo, at 33 weeks:

So this post is turning out a little pointless isn't it? Despite hitting third trimester fatigue, I have been doing a little bit of sewing - I manage to churn out a wadder that I'm still contemplating fixing, did a little bit of alteration to a dress and sewed some curtains.  Actually it was probably sewing the curtains that has drained my enthusiasm - sure they are simple rectangles with only long straight seams to sew, but wrangling with all that fabric and all the measuring required is so tiresome!

Hopefully I'll come back next post with a little more energy - perhaps a sugar hit is all I need!

DIY maternity shapewear

I thought I'd put up another post to see if I could provoke 'anonymous' into posting another passive/aggressive comment asking"why?" like I got to the post before the previous one in relation to me still wearing high heels.  I have heard that you're not a real blogger until you get heckled on your own blog, so yay for me! Even though mine was in the gentlest way I had a chuckle.....

So.  Maternity shapewear sounds like an oxymoron or at least very absurd, but it's all about the support of the lower back and belly, the firming up of the jiggling legs and behind and smooth lines under clingy clothes is just a bonus! I posted a while back about my love for maternity Spanx (which many of you concurred with) but unfortunately I wore and washed those so frequently that they got a big run in the front over the belly panel.  Still wearable but a tad bit annoying.

I was about to buy another pair when I decided to see what else is available because there were a few annoying things about the Spanx - namely that they are made of sturdy pantyhose like material which means they grab onto knit fabrics and even some loose fitting cotton dresses so that the fabric bunches up between my legs in a most unladylike manner.  They are also quite loose across my upper back so that there was a ridge line across my back under my bra - again not flattering.

Surprisingly there's not much else out there in this style, so I decided to try a DIY version when I saw that Big W had the traditional high waisted, bicycle short style made with a satiny finish on sale.  And it worked so double yay.  Here's how I did it:

1. purchase shapewear in a size larger than you normally wear.  I did this mainly because I am a size larger (or two) than I am normally but also because I wanted this fitted but not super sucking in a drop a dress size kind of way.

2.  cut out a 'u' shape where your pregnant belly sits.  I made these back at the end of November last year so I managed to just get them on and trace around the edge of my belly before quickly taking them off - that much pressure on the belly was an awful feeling!

3. from some stretchy fabric in a similar colour (I used some swimsuit lining) cut out a 'u' shape that is a bit wider than the 'u' shape cut out from the shapewear - stretch it out over your belly to see how wide you need it.

4. sew on the stretchy fabric 'u' shaped panel to your shapewear - I just overlocked mine on but you could also use a stretch stitch.

And you're done in about 30 minutes and have probably saved about $20 or $30 too!

I'll spare you all a photo of me modelling it though - that is a sight that no one deserves to see! I will however answer the questions posted in the comments to the post before the last one:

Uta - I agree that the styles in Burda are getting better lately - I thought they were cruelly taunting me because it seemed that the bigger my waistline got the more fitted their dresses became! I can't wait to regain my figure sometime in the (fingers crossed) near future so I can make some of their more lovely styles of late.

Jean - you're right, the roundness of my bump is mostly the baby's bum is sticking out! Anna is so excited, telling everyone that her mummy has a baby in her tummy and kissing my bump frequently but I also made the mistake of telling her accurately how the baby comes out so she is now going around telling everyone that the baby will come out of my vagina! Yes it's correct but it is still disconcerting hearing that word come out of three year old's mouth....

Mysummertouch - I probably won't sew anything for the new baby (except for some more cloth nappies, thanks to Bettina for reminding me!) because I don't know what the sex is but also because I have plenty of newborn sized clothes in neutral colours leftover from Anna.  And I found that in the first few months Anna was always wrapped and mostly asleep so her outfits were never really seen anyway, so I'll make some 3 month + sized clothes after the baby arrives and I know what colour to sew.

And to anonymous who lamented that me still wearing high heels is doing his/her head in and asked why, I guess the answer is that I still can and I still have somewhere to wear them! Pretty poor answer I know, but I have always worn a suit and heels to work even though there is no official dress code and some people dress very casually, but I never feel in a work frame of mind unless I'm dressed professionally.  Plus I don't own many flat shoes and the ones I do have are pretty casual slip ons, so I feel like I'm shuffling around wearing slippers when I've got them on.  But to put your mind at rest I do wear flats when I walking to and from the office, and I certainly don't go out on my days off with Anna to the playground or the museum or the library etc wearing heels - I am so not a yummy mummy!

zero waste sewing

I've been quite intrigued by the zero waste sewing movement, given my frugal nature, my distaste for waste and the huge bags of fabric scraps I already own.  Basically zero waste sewing is, as the name suggest, generating little to no leftover fabric through careful placement of the pattern pieces on the fabric.  Personally I can't see how it could be achieved fully in most designs unless you ignore grain lines and directional prints or the nap of fabric.  But I like the philosophy behind the movement and instead like many others I try to use my larger fabric scraps in a useful manner rather than just chucking them in the bin, especially since I work in the environment sector and know the resources and energy that are used when producing textiles (even the cheap and nasty ones).

Since I'm not a quilter (and nor do I think I would ever have the patience to be one), I'm lucky to have a small child to sew for as well the odd crafty item here and there to use up my fabric scraps.  And this would be an excellent example of both.

The blue and white stripe knit fabric I used for the bodice of the dress in the last post was from an odd shaped piece of fabric I picked up from the op shop and had been in my stash a while.  So to begin with I was using up someone else's scrap but being oddly shaped I couldn't have made much more from it than the bodice top that I did.  But I also managed to eek out this tshirt for Anna since they are little bitty pattern pieces for such a little tshirt:

The pattern I used is Kwik Sew 3424 which I've used before and is such simple construction it's not worth talking about.  I made a red cotton yo yo flower (also scrap fabric!) with a button from the stash to jazz it.

I also managed to cut out a simple rectangular gathered skirt with a elasticised waistband from the solid blue knit also from my dress, using up the last of the biggish area of the fabric:

By this stage there were only random small bits of fabric left, but I still wasn't done with it.  I  made an even smaller matching t-shirt for Anna's cabbage patch doll.  Unfortunately Anna wasn't being cooperative and refused to let me take a photo of her wearing these clothes, but the cabbage patch doll was a far more willing model!

So I think I've done my best to avoid adding precious resources to limited landfill deposits.  Rest assured though that Anna, the cabbage patch doll and I will NOT be seen in public together wearing our matching fabrics......

Speaking of the cabbage patch dolls, one of my very lovely readers, Renata, who is a fellow Sydneysider, sent me an awesome package shortly after christmas:

Unbelievably Renata gifted me these very cute and hard to come by cabbage patch dolls patterns from her own pattern stash.  So thank you again Renata, although I'll probably be cursing you when I'm up to my eyeballs in fiddly teeny tiny dolls clothes!

Another Burda potato sack made good: 3/2009 #113

Trena (aka The Slapdash Sewist) was absolutely correct in saying that I've made the most of the boxy styles that Burda has been dishing up for the last few years - I've made yet another maternity dress from a normal sized Burda pattern with the merest of tweaks to make it cover the basketball I'm carrying around at the moment.  I used pattern 113 from issue 3 of 2009, which looks like this:

And all I did was raise the waistline seam a few inches to instead become an empire seam above the bump, added a little extra width across the front and dipped the hem at the front so that it sat relatively straight, and in no time this is what I came up with:

I used a white and navy blue stripe knit from the stash for the bodice and some navy jersey bought from Spotlight for the skirt.  I sewed this mostly on my overlocker, and just used a twin stitch for finishing the hem and other edges.

I've gotten a lot of wear out of this one so far as it is really comfy whilst still having good coverage.  The pattern is quite deceptive because I didn't extend the sleeves at all, yet they did turn out a lot longer than I thought they would from the pattern line drawing.  But a bit of shoulder and upper flabby arm coverage is good for me at the moment!

Although this was an extremely easy pattern to make, I did have trouble with the neck facings.  I don't know if I traced these wrong or what I did incorrectly, but for some reason the back neck facing was way too wide but the front neck facing was too short so that it wouldn't sit flat.  So in my usual meticulous and highly professional sewing manner *cough cough* I fixed it by cutting a slit in the front facing at the button of the 'v', folding a pleat in the back facing and holding the facing down all the way around with iron on double sided interfacing!

So far it's holding up well, and I only have another 9 weeks of wear anyway....  Speaking of which, that basketball I alluded to? Check this out:

Eeek! This baby belly is so round and so out there this time around.  I seriously had 5 different people at work this week ask me if I was about to start my leave soon and then nearly choke in surprise when I said I'd be working for another 6 weeks! But I saw the obstetrician this week who assured me I am measuring normally and the baby's head is down and not in some weird position.  But the baby hasn't dropped too much, it still sits above Anna's head with a little help of some heels (yes yes I'm still wearing them):

In the comments to the last post Jean asked if I would be induced this time around too.  I'm hoping with all my fingers crossed that this labour starts and progresses naturally (not too long after the due date either!) because I've heard that induced labours are more painful and I could do with a little less pain.  Plus we missed out on the excitement of the dramatic movie style waters breaking, and the mad dash to the hospital so if it happens naturally it'll be like a first time experience (well that bit anyway, the rest I remember with vivid clarity).

I've just found out that my sister in law is going to be having her second son a few months after I'm due, which is exciting for them and good for Anna because now she'll have two male cousins to torment! But as for me I still have absolutely no idea what I'm having - this one is moving around a lot more than I recall Anna doing, plus I am more tired, a different shape and had much worse morning sickness but I'm also running around after 3 year old plus working part time, am nearly 35 now and having been trying to maintain a better diet this time around so I don't think anything there's anything meaningful in those differences.  I'll have to wait and see, just like nature intended!

The final stretch

I've clocked up 30 weeks of pregnancy this week, so in theory 10 weeks to go.  Since Anna was 2 weeks late (and even then required quite a lot of inducement to come out) I'm not holding my breath that this one will be on time.

Ironically this time I feel much heavier and have quite a lot of aches and pains but I haven't put on as much weight as last time. In fact I have a few maternity clothes I made last time that are still too big for me to wear - I wore a skirt to work during the week that I got sick of pulling it up so I accessorised with some bulldog clips to cinch it in!

But still I have grown out of a few clothes due to my expanding rear and hips, mostly my casual clothes which is what I need most now given that I only work part time this time around and spend quite a bit of time at the park, the library, the museum or other kid orientated places.  So even with only 10 weeks to go I'm still sewing maternity clothes  - I have the fabric and the will, so why not?

This latest dress is the ultimate in comfort but is not one of the best looking dresses I've made, but for once appearance isn't exactly at the forefront of my mind as I try to waddle around in our summer (which has been quite mild to date thankfully!).  So I have actually been wearing this quite a bit, although I feel a bit sloppy and blah.  The only review for this pattern on Pattern Review notes the same issue, so I guess it's not just me.





















I used Burda 4/2010 #122 which need very little modification to make it maternity friendly.  In fact after wearing this a few times I'd say it needed no alteration at all, but to be safe I added a bit extra width to the front dress panel but it's so roomy that I don't think I needed to do that at all.  I also stuffed up by sewing the front bodice and lining together at the neckline and the shoulders, plus the same with the back bodice so I couldn't join the front and back together at the shoulder! D'oh..... But I was too lazy to unpick since I sewed this dress mostly using my overlocker, so my dodgy solution was to just lay the front piece over the back, topstitch along the shoulder and then sew on four buttons to cover it up. Yes, I was even too lazy to make buttonholes!

The other changes I made was to leave off the front opening placket and instead I just sewed on a few buttons on the front where it should be have been - I just couldn't be bothered making the placket since I knew I wouldn't wear this unbuttoned.  The pattern also required a double layer of the fabric (recommended jersey) but I thought that was unnecessary and too hot for summer so I only made a single layer for the dress body and just a self lined bodice.  And I left off the rectangle square at the front that makes a channel for the tie, instead just leaving the tie loose so I could tie it above the baby bump wherever I wanted.

The fabric I bought from the Remnant Warehouse a few months back when I bought the swimsuit fabric.  I don't recall the fabric content label, but I just thought it was a cotton jersey in grey marle with fine black stripes.  After washing it and smelling that unmistakable wet dog smell I realise it's actually wool jersey which made the price I paid ($9.95/m at 145cm wide) an even bigger bargain.  I might remake this blah dress into a simple skirt post pregnancy to get some better use out of the fabric.

Speaking of the swimsuit fabric, yes Kyle it really does say Nookie Beach which is a bit funny given the connotations but it's actually a fashion label here in Australia and I guess this is remnant from their summer line a while back.  And thanks everyone for your flattering comments - we really are our worse critics but I am finding also that the older I get and the more lumpy and bumpy I get post child(ren) I am also getting less self obsessed about how I look.  Yes I am aware of my faults, and I try to minimise them through what I wear, but I've also realised that this is as a good as it gets - I'm sure when I'm 60, 70 or 80 I'll wish I look like I do now!

In the nick of time: Kwik Sew 3416 done

It's probably way too late for Christmas related puns, but I did manage to finish sewing my maternity swimsuit on Christmas night just before we left the next morning for our holiday.  And I'm so glad I did - I like how they turned out so much that I only wore the ones I made and not the tankini I had purchased 'just in case'.  And they didn't fall apart either - they withstood swimming at the water theme park, the beach and the hotel resort pool with nary a popped stitch (phew!).

This is probably the bravest photo I've posted on my blog so far, but hey this is what I look like at 27 weeks pregnant - lumps, bumps, bruises, pale, freckly skin and one sizeable baby bump:

To recap I used Kwik Sew 3416, view A although I made two shoulder straps instead of a halter strap. 

I modified it to make a maternity swimsuit by increasing the length of the front body piece and gathering at the sides so it created a ruched effect across the belly. I also added a bit of extra width across the front as well, but just cut the bodice and the crotch/bottom section to match my current measurements.  Here's the inside of the gathered section:

The other change I made was to fully line the swimsuit instead of just lining the bodice and crotch section as per the pattern.  I did however follow the pattern exactly for the rest of the sewing since this is my first swimsuit attempt, with mixed results.  It looks good on the outside - I twin stitched the edges so it looks pretty much RTW from the outside:

but it is a huge mess on the inside though! The straps get sewn on last so the raw ends of the straps are visible, and the overlocked edge with the elastic stitched on by zig zag looks quite messy.

Worst of all though is the way the bra cups are sewn in.  The pattern says to snip a cross at the bust point of the lining fabric, stretch the lining fabric over the curve of the bra cup and zig zag stitch around the edges of the bra cup.  Then you have to cut away the lining fabric close to the stitching line so that the bra cup is exposed, like this:

Not only does this look a little bizarre and most unlike RTW, but the raw edge and the zig zag stitching is a little *ahem* itchy against that sensitive area of skin (sorry if that is too much info!).  If I were to make this again I would make put another layer of lining fabric in that covered up the bra cups to avoid this.  I would also possibly insert an underwire into the bodice as well to give a bit more shape and definition - you can see from that side on shot above that I am not overly endowed in the chestal region, but what I do have has sagged after pregnancy and 13 months of breastfeeding so I could use a little 'lift and seperate' action happening!!

So for about $20 I have made myself a pretty decent pair of maternity swimmers.  Whilst I do think swimsuits are extremely expensive (the last non maternity suite I purchased was $165), I do take my hat off to the sewists - these are extremely fiddly and rather time consuming to sew comparative to the size of the garment!

Little miss three

We've finally returned home from our annual Christmas visit to the inlaws / holiday.  It is so nice to sleep in your own bed and be in your own space - parents reading this will nod in agreement when I say that a holiday with a small child is actually a misnomer, it's just parenting in a different location with the added challenge of being out of routine and in unfamiliar places! Add to that being six months pregnant in stifling Queensland heat it just adds up to it being harder than staying at home.....

While we were away Anna turned 3 and in the tradition I started for her I made her another birthday dress (2nd birthday dress here and 1st birthday dress here).  It was tough work to get her to put it on because her favourite dress at the moment is a Dora the Explorer dress given to her as a hand me down that she wears practically every day unless she's been naughty and I make her take it off to wear some shorts and a tshirt as punishment!

I made a vintage pattern, Butterick 2194, which is undated but I think is circa 1950s possibly early 60s. 

I made it from some cotton plisse in a pale purple white polka dot fabric, with contrasting white cotton collar and cuffs.  I think it is very cute even though it has a touch of school uniform about it, especially since I made her pose in front of my inlaws house as though it were the first day of school:

It has buttons down the back of bodice, and is heavily gathered around the sides and the back so it passes the twirl test nicely:

Sadly all that enthusiastic twirling resulted in a a big fall, so we had to bribe her with some jelly while we patched her up:

Check out that pouty face - she has certainly turned into a little drama queen!

Hope you all had a wonderful and relaxing holiday season.  I have a few days left before going back to work next week and with Anna back at daycare this week my real holiday is just starting....