Refashion Friday: Reworked Maternity Tights

About six weeks ago I completed my grey Tova dress creation, one of my first forays into maternity sewing. But if I was ever actually going to be able to wear this dress, I was also going to have to address the issue of tights. A bunch of time ago I bought some lovely mustardy-yellow opaque tights from American Apparel, but even though I bought the M/L, they always dug into my belly in an uncomfortable fashion. Rather lamely I didn't do anything about it, I just kind of accepted it and avoided wearing them even though they were the most expensive tights I've ever bought. It's stupid isn't it? If I were making something for myself to wear, I'd damn well made sure it fit, but because I bought these in a shop, why is it ok that they don't fit? How comes, if a garment made ourselves doesn't fit, that's a problem with the garment, however if a shop-bought garment doesn't fit, it's our bodies' fault rather than the garment's?! Or at least I think that's how it is often perceived.

I've always had problems with tights. I get bloated easily and so often find tights are just too tight around my middle, and especially after lunch thicker tights often feel unbearably uncomfortable. I do have a little belly even when I'm not pregnant, and that's just never going to go away, but I'm not a big lady and buying a larger size (if a larger size is available) would just result in baggy ankles! So I tended to either suffer the discomfort or only wear a skirts/dresses and tights combo when I knew I'd be able to take them off after a few hours!

But with my expanded pregnancy belly, it really was time to deal with the uncomfortable tights issue. So I put these mustard tights on and popped a couple of pins in to ascertain a good new elastic line that sits under my belly. I then took them off and wrapped some elastic round that same line to figure out how long it should be. I cut the original top of the tights off a couple of centimetres above the new marked out line, and simple wrapped the raw edge over twice encasing the elastic inside and pinning evenly in place. I sandwiched it all together by using a three step zigzag stitch. Simples.

And for the best part of two months they were the most comfortable tights I've EVER owned. My belly had now grown too big for these to work anymore, but for those two months, these were heaven. Why the hell didn't I just make this simple alteration to all my opaque and thick tights previously? I'm going to do this to all my other tights after my pregnancy and forever more. Some pregnant women seem to prefer the waistband of tights, skirts and trousers to come up and over their belly, whilst others seem to dislike that feeling and prefer things that sit underneath the belly. I'm still pretty much open to all maternity garment styles, but I feel I am gravitating towards the latter category so I don't think I'd enjoy wearing the usual maternity tights that come right up over the belly or stop across the belly midway. It's amazing that, what with all the crazy stuff that's going on in my innards that my belly remembers its predilection to bloating, but it certainly still like to throw that into the mix regularly! Oh, the lessons I'm learning...