Have you joined the party yet?! We'd love to have you! :)
Remember this post?
Well, here’s the tutorial for the shirt. Now you can have a completely comfy and “new” maternity outfit!
Meet Alison...again. She is having baby #3 (a girl) in a few months, and she is going to let me love and snuggle on her baby whenever I want. Right, Alison?! ;)
Anyway, I got about a million tee shirts off the $1 clearance rack at Walmart. This tute features 1 1/2 of those shirts. Here we go.
Start with two shirts that are a bit too big for you. The pink shirt wasn’t going to be long enough on it’s own, so I added some length with the grey one.
Measure and cut the length you want the “layered” part of the shirt. I used the other part of the shirt for another clothing refashion cardigan. Save those scraps! You never know when they’ll come in handy! :)
Line the grey band up with the hem of the shirt.
Pin it down and stitch it into place. I used my double needle with matching thread so that my seams wouldn’t be noticeable.
See? Now it’s time to do the ruched side seams. You could do this with 1/4 inch elastic, but I didn’t have any. I used elastic thread and shirred it. I{heart}shirring.
Wind your bobbin with elastic thread by hand. Don’t stretch it.
Put the bobbin in the machine the way you normally would.
Select a straight stitch, but lengthen it a bit. Use a top thread that will blend into the shirt. Start sewing!
I pinned how high I wanted to sew, and again by the hem so that I’d know when to turn it around. I did four rows of shirring on both sides of the shirt. (Sorry about the lighting at my sewing machine…)
See? I didn’t shirr the grey part of the shirt because I had pinkish thread in my machine. I rethreaded it with grey and shirred the grey band on both sides.
I only shirred to the pink hem.
Here’s what the shirring looked like when I was finished.
It looks MUCH cuter on…
The ruched side seams will give you more room for your expanding tummy.
Now you have another way to make your non-maternity wardrobe work for your pregnancy!
…and you’ll be able to by new clothes when you’ve got your little bundle of joy in your arms; not your belly! :)
P.S. Thanks for being my model, Alison!
CUTE!!! I wish I could sew good!! I can do a straight line but that is it, nothing fancy!!! Newest follower, and excited to get to know a Utah blogger!! Where in Utah are you? There are a lot of Seeley's around. My husbands family came from Sanpete County!!!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for this. I am brand new to sewing, as in I JUST got my first machine for Christmas this week. I watched the DVD on how to use it today. I am so glad that you included exactly what settings to put the machine on when sewing. That's really helpful.
ReplyDeleteI have one question. When you said you did 4 rows of shearing on both sides of the shirt do you mean you went up and down the fabric 4 times so that there would be 4 rows of stitching?
I'm doing your maternity pants first, except I'm doing it on a skirt. I hope it comes out well, it will be my first project. Thank you for your site. I will be browsing the rest of it :)
Yes, I went up and down the fabric four times so there are four rows of shirring.
DeleteHooray for a new sewing machine and for learning a new skill! That's so fun!
Let us know how your sewing projects turn out! Are you having a baby? I'm assuming, since you're making a maternity skirt and shirt... Congratulations!
Thanks so much for stopping by! :)