Since I am keeping up so well with Scrap Sunday, I thought I could introduce another type of themed posts: Maternity Monday where I want to show you all the lovely maternity items I have made for myself. (as of today: 2)

For all those of you who are now rolling their eyes or even laughing because they aren’t quite as impressed by my blogging consistency as I am myself, I would like to point out that your behaviour is rather rude and lacks any basis. Definitely. And besides, I never said, I would post every Sunday.

Back to Maternity Monday. Considering that I am already 28 weeks and that there might not be that many more pregnancies, I want to make garments that can easily be changed into normal clothes later.

You might remember the sleeveless top I made a few weeks ago. The neckline and the armholes weren’t great, I have since improved the neckline by stretching the band more but I am afraid, I will only redo the armholes once I open the side seams to alter it to a non maternity shirt.

Still thinking of making another one with narrower shoulder straps but not sure. After all, British summer doesn’t require a huge number of sleeveless tops. I just think they will be more easily changed back to normal than anything with sleeves.

So much for the update, but today I wanted to show you a skirt that I made for the baptism.

I had this lovely fabric that just called for bold pleats. I am normally not too much into orange (maybe lately a bit) or blue but I think this colour combination is just perfect to bring out my varicose veins in their full beauty.

So I mismeasured my “waistline” (somewhere under the bump), multiplied it by three, calculated how many 4cm pleats I could make out of it, added seam allowance, realised that I would just need twice the whole width of the fabric, cut the 1m fabric in half to get a 50cm long skirt and sew the two pieces on one side together.

I then started folding the fabric into boxed pleats and closed the second side up to almost the top. I finished off those 5cm of open edges by folding them in twice and top stitching. Then I tried it on again and realised that it was actually too wide. So I had to cut some excess fabric off and made just a normal pleat on the side rather than a full boxed one. I was a bit under time pressure as I made it a day before leaving.

I added a dark blue, rather wide “waist”band and decided then that I would prefer an elastic for extra security. Some people might find it slightly inappropriate if I lost the skirt half way through the baptism. So I added an extra wide elastic band and used three hooks for the closure. I wanted to use buttons at first but I was worried that the button holes would tear as I made the elastic rather tight.

I had also bought some orange satin bias binding to put on the hem, or maybe just a bit above. I think that would look lovely. But I asked the colour expert and she said – much to my surprise – “no”. This might have just been the usual contradiction to whatever I suggest but it did leave me so insecure and confused that I decided to leave it for now 🙂

Just look at that beautiful colour matching with the nails, sandals and varicose veins!

Perfect look for swing dancing.

When it comes to altering the skirt for a post pregnancy body I will definitely take it fully apart. That wrong pleat at the side wouldn’t do the quality of the fabric any justice.

I guess, it will go up to my real waist, get a proper zip, probably still a wide waist band to make it look a bit like a big belt and maybe, just maybe an orange line just above the hem. Oh, and i got the tip to do the pleats only in the front and back but leave them out on the side to avoid huge hips. Not that I would need that. And I seriously doubt that I will still remember that when the time comes 🙂