Sew Your Own Maternity Jeans

First off, I loved your post yesterday, Ash!  Way to keep it real!  I think your necklace was lovely!  :)

Ack!  Oh no!  I’ve lost ALL of my pictures for this tutorial!  I do have some pictures of the finished product, but since I have no need for maternity jeans in my life and have no need to make another pair, bear with me while I explain what I did.

I have a super adorable friend, Alison, who is having another baby for me to love and snuggle on whenever I want!  :)

Isn’t she cute!  :)  How about those jeans she’s wearing?  Wanna learn how to make those?  It’s so easy!  The tutorial on the shirt will come later.  Don’t panic!

In all my years of having babies, my favorite and most comfortable jeans were the Secret Fit Belly jeans from Motherhood Maternity.

They are so easy to re-create.  Remember how I got a ton of tee shirts off the clearance rack at Wal-Mart for a buck?  This tutorial will include another one of those marvelous shirts!  :)

Start with a pair if stretchyish non-maternity jeans and a tee shirt. 

Cut the bottom half of the tee shirt just under the armpits off like so:

Remember how I lost my pictures?  Well, here’s a diagram of what I did next.

Take in the side seams, and serge the raw edges.  Or not.  It’s knit so it won’t fray.

Now take your jeans and cut off the waistband and the button.  Leave the bottom parts of the belt loops and don’t mess with the pockets.

Now cut out your zipper.

Sew the fly shut with a thread that blends in with the jeans.  Pin your pockets down and straight stitch around what used to be the waistband.  Sew down the top halves of the chopped off belt loops, too.

Take your tee shirt and your jeans and pin the raw edges together, but be sure that the right sides of both the shirt and the jeans are facing up. 

See the top part with the pins?  That’s what you’ve got to do.

Set up your zig-zag stitch.  You want this maternity waistband to be able to s-t-r-e-t-c-h!

Zig-zag around the top of your raw edges.  Again, pretend this is on a pair of jeans!

Serge or zig-zag around these edges.  The denim will fray.  Now your pants are finished!

{Pretend you see a picture of the finished jeans without Alison in them here!}

Look how comfy!  See the bottom of the belt loops?  That’s what I was trying to explain above. 

These jeans can either be worn with the belly pulled all the way up as shown above, or it can be folded down.

This is why we sewed the shirt to the jeans with the right side facing up.

Cute, comfy and cheap!  You can’t go wrong with that, can ya?  The good thing about using a pair of your own non-maternity jeans is that you’ll have an excuse to buy new jeans once the baby gets here!  Genius!

Let’s take a moment and admire that cute belly and cute baby girl:

Awww!  I can’t wait to meet her!

Happy sewing!