My Growing Wardrobe

When I found out I was pregnant I felt fortunate to know how to sew. As a plus-sized woman it can be difficult to find well-fitting, fashionable clothes. Since learning to sew I’ve come to feel good, real good, in the clothes I make. And still do, eight months into pregnancy. I accept the numbers on the scale, those one the measuring tape and just go from there. I made some great pieces that proved to work well throughout my pregnancy and I can’t help but breathe a huge sigh of relief. Only one maternity dress didn’t make it into this stage of the baby-making process (looking at you, Simplicity 1998 ). With a combination of previously owned ready-to-wear pieces that still fit, my me-made maternity wear and a few maternity pieces I bought on sale I’ve had quite a fun time with maternity fashion.

When I found out I was pregnant I was determined to show the positive energy I was feeling in my appearance. The bright colors and flirty fashion choices continued. And here are the me-made winners that have made it with me into the third trimester.

Purple Babydoll dress from Sew U Home Stretch.

Pregnant or not, make this dress. It’s so cute and über comfy.

Red/Navy Babydoll Dress from Sew U Home Stretch

Self-drafted Circle Skirt and Colette Jasmine Blouse

Feeling sassy? Make a circle skirt and sashay about. You won’t regret it.

Refashioned Colette Ginger Skirt

I’m glad I was able to save this skirt from the donation pile. Adding a tummy band quickly made it wearable.

Stripey Skirt based on an existing maternity skirt

This skirt is my jam. I love it so much.

My favorite and most loved, the Lace and Liberty 1970 Maternity Dress

I’ve really enjoyed sewing and dressing for my ever-changing body (refashioning jeans came in handy!) and I wouldn’t do anything different if I can do it again. A good mix of RTW and me-made pieces helped me until the near end. I never overexerted myself to make more. But now, with 4 weeks to go, I’m tempted to make a few more pieces . But the logical thing to do is stay content with what I have and call it a complete maternity wardrobe. And make baby stuff instead

2012 Me-Made Stuff

2012 Me-Made Stuff, a set on Flickr.

I’ll keep this brief. We have boxes of furniture we have to start putting together. Blergh.

I had quite a productive sewing year. Considering a year ago I was afraid to cut into fabric I’m quite happy with the results. They are not all great but quite a few winners in there.

I can’t get enough of my pajama bottoms and my maternity dresses. They have been saviors during this bump-a-licious period. But I think best prize definitely goes to my Windmill Colette Hazel.

I definitely want to revisit some on my failures (never got that fit perfect), like Darling Ranges , the Juniper trousers, and Jasmine blouse.

This sewing year I felt adventurous, less fearful, and didn’t let mistakes keep me from finishing a project.

I thoroughly enjoyed making sewing friends offline and online. I can’t begin to tell you the amount of wonderful you added to my day-to-day (here’s a clue: LOADS).

No guarantees that I will be as productive next year, with a baby on the hip and all, but I’ll try to make things as well-made as I can. Here’s to learning and improving our sewing skills!

Happy New Year!

Oh yeah…

In my previous post I forgot to thank everyone for their thoughtful comments and well wishes on a safe journey. I didn’t have much time to comment to each and every one so figured this would do: Thank you! Group hug!

Apronalong Guest Post - Baking Doughnuts!

Reblogged from Did You Make That?:

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Hey, guys! I know that Melizza of Pincushion Treats can bake, because I've eaten several of her creations. Macaroons, cheese cake, cocktails... If I lived with Melizza, I don't think I'd ever stop licking my plate clean. She was the obvious person to invite as a guest blogger for our Apronalong Launch. I asked her to bake something unusual and exciting, and she didn't disappoint...

Read more… 622 more words

Hey! I jumped at the chance to do a guest post for Karen from Did You Make That?. Go and check it out. I dare you not to want and make doughnuts after reading. They are so yum.

Fall/Winter Sewing Plans and a Huge THANK YOU!

Thank you so much for your congratulations, your great pattern suggestions and for just being straight up AWESOME. We’re super excited, and having kept the news to ourselves for three months now, it feels great to finally share it. I seriously wanted to scream it to the world but managed not to. Big deal, y’all. Big deal. Anyhow, I really appreciate your kind words and it really truly made my day. Thank you.

So, fall/winter sewing plan! I am thinking dresses, underpinnings and separates. The usual, I guess. As always I may have an ambitious list on my hands. I always have the best intentions of sewing everything on my list. But just like a goldfish I get easily distracted by shiny objects. So my plan will be loosely followed. But with that said I have already made a pair of Clovers (sneaky me didn’t show you the knit waistband I had added) and the Groovy Liberty dress. Using Zo’s great maternity tutorial I have adjusted the Tiny Pocket Tank and the Renfrew top. All I have to do sew it up. So I am definitely on my way to making good progress through my list.

I have a lot of patterns. I am not going to lie. I sat down one afternoon and looked at them and put aside the ones I thought could be adapted for maternity wear. I then narrowed the pack smaller by considering a few things:

1) Is it a quick, relatively easy make? I don’t want to invest a lot of time on a complicated pattern I won’t be able to wear a few months postpartum.
2) Will it be easy to fit/adapt to belly? Again, don’t want too much complications. Hoping to stick to mostly knit fabrics. Hoping to become a jersey-sewing pro!
3) How likely am I to wear said pattern? I have to be smart in picking my print and fabric because I’d hate to get bored with it quickly. And it has to be comfortable. If not, to the back of the closet it will go and remain.
4) How likely am I to sew a pattern while heavily pregnant? Do I need to make sure the clothes I make can be grown into in a few months (yay knits!)?
5) Can the tops and bottoms easily make various outfits? Are they good layering pieces with the dresses? I really want to layer this fall. I found a great site for inspiration.
6) Refashion, refashion, refashion. There are quite a few items in my closet that need some life breathed back into them. My denim Ginger has always fit snug around the waist so I am considering replacing the waistband with a knit one.

So what’s next on my sewing table? I am currently washing some mustard Ponte Roma knit I bought last week. I’m hoping it will look great made up into this:

Hope y’all have a great week! And many thanks again

Sewist Meetup at Sissinghurst Castle (Me-Made-May Day 25)

No one can argue that the sewing community is a wonderful one to belong to. I find myself very fortunate to be part of such a welcoming and opening group of people. I love meeting up with fellow sewists and chatting about projects and just life in general. So it’s to no surprise that I jumped at the opportunity to meet up with Claire. We met at the OWOP cocktail meetup.  She casually mentioned she lived at a castle and I basically invited myself over. I can be a bit shy at times but not enough to miss out hanging with a lovely sewist at her castle!

Okay. So Claire doesn’t live in the castle. As a gardener for the Sissinghurt Castle grounds she lives in the most adorable cottage ever.

Here we are looking adorable in our me-made outfits. She’s wearing a sweet swiss dot Sorbetto and an awesome Ginger skirt. I’m wearing my new self-drafted circle skirt.

But before I go on about the skirt. Check out the grounds she calls work and home.

Can you imagine this place being at your  front door?

After a lovely guided tour around the famous gardens, Claire took my friend and I back to her cottage for some tea and delicious carrot cake. She even gave us some cake for the train ride home. It was just as tasty the second time around. Thanks so much for the awesome hospitality, Claire!

Now for the skirt. I drafted a full circle skirt using two tutorials: Patty Snug Bug’s Circle Skirt calculator and Casey’s Circle Skirt Sew-along posts. For the waistband I just used the one I drafted for my gathered skirt. For a full skirt I used about 2 meters of cotton twill fabric. It was 60 inches wide. Any less and I would have had to sacrifice length and I wasn’t too sure if I wanted to do that. In hindsight I’ll make a shorter one next time.

I do love how the skirt swishes about as you move. I can easily imagine myself swing dancing with Greg while wearing it (with shorts of course!).  I definitely think this skirt will get a lot of wear.

My favorite part of the skirt is the slashed open zipper. The skirt has no seams so I was quite curious about how I was going to insert a zipper. Casey’s tutorial helped with that immensely.

Another Me-Made day completed! Five more to go!

The Blogger Series

Dibs from Dibs and The Machine has started a fun series where she’ll be interviewing fellow sewing bloggers. She kindly asked to interview me and I said yes. You can find the video here. There was even a special guest star

I’m looking forward to seeing how the series develops and who gets interviewed next!

Welcome back Dibs!

It’s pyjama weather

The weather in England today is quite shit. No really. It’s super cold and wet. With that said we headed off to Folkestone, Kent to meet up with friends. After a fast train there we were soon rewarded with the White Cliffs of Dover. Gorgeous.

After wandering about in Folkestone, in blistering winds, we were ready to head home. Today people, is ideal pyjama weather. Am I too late for Karen’s pyjama party? I hope not because I’m ready. Let me go turn on the fire (did I mention it’s freaking cold?!), put on my jammies and wooly slippers and I’ll be all set.

Oh, yes. These were a quick make and I made no adjustments. Maybe I should have because the crotch is almost at my knees. No matter. They are quite relaxing. Wait. I’m still cold. I can remedy that quickly.

Not only is today ideal pyjama weather but it’s ideal mulled wine weather.

Mmm…deeelish. I’d share but there’s only one bottle. Apologies.

Pass me my book and I’m set for the rest of the night. Oh look, I managed to get some sewing-related treats in Folkestone. Of course I did.

I hope everyone had a great time at the party and not too many pillows were hurt. As for me, I am calling it a night and staying in. Me and my wine of course.

My Treats Bring All the Sewists to the Yard

I’ve been relatively quiet about my new Etsy shop but Dibs sniffed me out. She was my first customer and I was beyond ecstatic. Still am. So what’s my new venture about? Pincushions of course! I’ve been collecting cute little treasures for months now, making them into little pincushions. They are quite sweet and would dress up a space nicely.

The Clay Mouse Planter Pincushion

Churchill English China Pincushion

Red on White Pincushion

Pink Polka Dot Pincushion

Buttercup Bone China Pincushion

Dibs has kindly offered to give one away to a lucky reader. How exciting!

So enough about that. Now back to sewing…

The Purl Bee Pom Pom Cowl

I took a break from making this:

To make this:

It’s great to take an easy sewing break when a project proves uber hard and requires you to walk away from it a bit. You can find the tutorial here.