More Maternity Madness: Some Selfless Stitching

Don't be thinking that all the maternity sewing that's been happening round here has all been for myself, oh no! With only two months left to go, I'm trying to get by on my limited selection of maternity clothes (with the exception of a new dress which I'll blog about next week). However, I'm in the lucky position to have a bit of free time for sewing at the moment so I was able to come to the aid of my good friend Anna (also preggers) when she announced that she was rapidly growing out of her clothes and having a bit of a maternity wardrobe crisis. 

I made her a version of my nautical batwing and black batwing dresses in a super soft, light-weight grey knit that had been sitting in my stash for about a year. Anna lives in Madrid so it was very important to make something in a light-weight fabric. You can't see them here, but I added a few little pearl buttons to the sleeve bands/cuffs for some extra detailing. I also elongated the pattern a bit because Anna is a tall lady, her height being the cause of some of her problems sourcing decent maternity clothing. Not only do a lot of the dresses and skirts end up indecently short on her (she has a proper grown-up's job where that would NOT be cool, even if she felt comfortable in them), but also she's found that being taller means that the positioning for the bump in some dresses ends up in the wrong place for her. As you can see in the photo above, she looks AMAZING in the batwing dress! Damn that girl can accessorise! And the shoes? I can't even talk about those shoes right now...

The second garment I flowed Anna's way was actually kind of a happy accident. I'd made a gathered side jersey top (pictured above) as a toile using my own maternity top tutorial instructions but tweaking the measurements a bit. It came out a bit too long in the body for me and the gathers to accommodate my bump were a bit low, but seeing as I hadn't expected the first version to be perfect, I wasn't bothered as it helped me perfect the pattern for my next attempts (the spotty dress remake and grey fancy sleeve top). I thought it might serve as something for me to sleep in, but when Anna said she needed maternity wear, I realised this would ace for her, considering it had been a bit long for me. The jersey print is pretty mentally bright (more random stash fabric), but hopefully she can get she wear from it at home or at her preggers yoga class. 

So, who wants to see a pic of me and Anna in the 1990's?! EVERYONE (no doubt)!!!:

Hahahahaaaaa. The 1990's! Look how drunk I am! Seeing as we are both about to become mothers, Anna and I will probably never be that drunk together again.  

Refashion Friday: Interview with Miche from Buttons and Birdcages

(Miche's gorgeous cut out heart back dress refashion)

Just when you think you've seen most of what 'refashioning' has to offer, you go and discover a new-to-you talent full of fun, creative ideas bringing a fresh approach to the genre! That's how I felt a few weeks ago when I stumbled upon the 'Buttons and Birdcages' blog written by the super-sweet and talented Miche. With her focus firmly on style, she's busy breathing new life and direction into thrifted finds. Luckily for us she agreed to be interviewed on the subject for Refashion Friday, so let's hear from the girl herself... 

Z: What appeals to you about refashioning and can you remember how you begun? 

M: For me, it's a creative outlet and it's really fun. As an avid thrifter, I was constantly coming across dresses that didn't fit, or weren't quite in style anymore. I finally decided to do something about it, so I took a chance on a $3.99 dress from Goodwill, and a new passion was born.

Z: What role does refashioning/upcycling/remaking (whichever term you prefer) play in your life? Has that role changed over time? 

M: What started as a hobby is starting to become a passion. Finding that next frock to refashion pretty much makes my day. As of now, it is still a hobby, however, a lot of friends have asked me to start selling my recreations, which I'm not quite sure they're good enough for that, but who knows what the future may hold.

(Zooey Deschanel: Miche's modern day style icon)

Z: You clearly love a good thrifting adventure, how often do you visit thrift stores and what are you looking for when you are there? 

M: I typically go about once a week. Usually I go straight to the dress section and then work my way through the racks and over to the furniture/random stuff (some seriously awesome gems buried in there if you take the time to look)

Z: Who or what inspires your personal style? Where do you go (physically or virtually) to find inspiration? 

M: I consider my style to be pretty eclectic - I draw inspiration of course from classics like Audrey Hepburn, and mix it with some modern day Zooey Deschanel. I love getting lost in personal style blogs like Delightfully-tacky.com/ and browsing through the new arrivals section on Modcloth.com.

(A double dose of 90's garment refashioning!)

Z: What would you say are your three favourite refashions you've completed? 

M: This purple dress (pictured at the top of this post) was one of the most challenging (and rewarding) I've completed to date (the heart cut out was a nightmare). Another favorite was actually a really simple re-do of a long skirt and denim dress (pictured above). It was so simple, but it turned out to be so wearable and stylish. And I guess I have to say my absolute favorite was actually the first refashion I ever completed (pictured below).

(Can you believe this was Miche's first ever refashioning project!)

Z: Can you share with us three of your favourite refashions by other people? 

M: There are so many! Choosing is tough, but since I have to choose, one of my favorites is the Kitschy Dress project by the Refashionista. She is so inspiring, I never would've thought to dye anything before seeing her do it time and time again on her amazing blog. Another favorite is this velvet dress by Annika from The Pineneedle Collective. It so reminds me of my first refashion, it's simple, and this girl has awesome hair! I am completely obsessed with vintage style - so when I saw this refashion of a Betty Draper style dress by Sally from Charity Shop Chic, I fell completely in love (BTW, you can read my interview with Sally here).

(Former Refashion Friday interviewee, Jillian from Refashionista in her awesome Kitschy Dress refashion)

Z: What’s been your most challenging refashioning project to date?

M: I think the most challenging project I've completed yet has to be my copycat Anthropologie dress. It was for the Refashion Runway contest, and the challenge was to copy something from a magazine or catalog. I was so excited to copy an Anthropologie dress that I didn't stop to think about how much work was going to go into it. Not only was it a ton of work, it also didn't allow me to be very creative, which ended up being pretty tough for me personally.

Z: How much of what you wear, day-to-day, has been made or refashioned by yourself? 

M: I'm still building my refashioned wardrobe. Right now, I'd say I've made/refashioned only about 15% of my wardrobe but I'm hoping to increase that number significantly in the coming months 

(Copycat Anthropologie style at a fraction of the cost!)

Z: Describe your dream thrifting day... where are you and what do you find?! 

M: On my dream thrifting day I'm searching through the racks of a thrift store on the edge of town. I come across one dress, a single, beautiful item with an amazing history that I can only begin to guess. Finding the perfect shoes and earrings to match would really top the day off!

Z: What advice would you / do you give to anyone wanting to try refashioning but aren’t sure where to start? 

M: Take a chance. Even if something seems intimidating or you don't know where to start, once you get it off the hanger chances are your creativity will take over. Worst case scenario, you toss it out. Best case, you have an amazing new(ish) piece of clothing :)

Thanks sooo much Miche for taking the time to answer my probing questions! I wish you lots of luck and fun as you up the percentage of self-made/refashions in your wardrobe and I'll be watching closely to the outcomes of that journey.

Fancy-Sleeved Maternity T-shirt!

... for want of a better blog post title. After the success of my recent spotty dress to maternity T-shirt project, I felt inspired to make a variation that had something a little more fancy about it. A dash of pattern adjustment rendered the spotty version's pattern a little longer in the body and with a 'scooper' neckline. 

I then jacked the sleeve pattern and armscye shape from the below complicated jersey top pattern.   

For those who may be curious, the above pattern came from the below magazine: a copy of some sort of French Simplicity patterns magazine that I scored at a meet-up/swap a couple of years ago. I don't speak French. Finding out if the pattern pieces already included seam allowances was a challenge (figured out that they do! Who knew?!).

The fabric I used for this top is a total dream! I scored 2 metres of super-stretchy and silky-soft dark grey jersey from a charity shop in Clapham round the corner from Sew Over It for just £3! The gods of charity shopping smiled on me that day. 

I must admit that when I first tried this top on, I wasn't in love with it. The sleeves seemed a bit bizarre, although I have to say that in the flesh they look exactly like the ones on the pink top in the magazine. I think that my lack of initial acceptance might be because the sleeves are a bit of a departure from what I consider to be 'my style', but after a couple of wears this is now my favourite maternity top. It's funny how, when I first became pregnant, the thought of having to put aside my quest to find and represent my sense of style through sewing for a time really troubled me. But as the months have progressed and I've found myself making and wearing things that I wouldn't have gone for had I not been preggers, I've actually found it liberating. The fact that this is for such a finite period has allowed me the freedom to explore things like a different sleeve shape, for example. I'm not sure what effect these experiments and freedoms will have, if any, on my style and sewing in the long term but it'll be interesting to keep half an eye on that. 

Baby Trousers!

Quite a few lovely readers have left comments over the last few months along the lines of 'Can't wait to see what you've been stitching for your little one', and this blog post contains the answer: baby trousers!!!!!! Lots and lots of baby trousers. Pictured above are the completed ones so far, I have a some more pairs awaiting elastic. 

A super-lovely reader of my blog called Catherine emailed me in the Spring offering to send me a few maternity patterns that she no longer needed. In her package she also included a couple of baby/toddler patterns that her boys were now too big for, and also leant me a copy of the Finish Ottobre Design magazine (pictured above). I'd seen the women's version of the magazine on a few blogs before, but hadn't really come across the children's edition. OMG. It's flipping awesome. It works in the same way as Burda magazines in that all the patterns are printed on folded up sheets that you have to trace and add seam allowances to. The benefit of the children's version of course it that the pattern pieces are much smaller, therefore much quicker to trace! 

The magazine does contain all sorts of uber-cute baby grow and envelop-neck t-shirt patterns for babies, but seeing as those types of garments are so readily available for very little money (as I discussed in my previous baby clothes post), I thought I'd focus my energies on making these fun trousers which are both really quick to make and good for stash bustin' scraps of jersey left over from other, larger projects. Heeding the advice of a whole heap of people, I didn't bother to make the smallest size as everyone has been saying how quickly babies grow out of the tiniest clothes, so I traced the second smallest size and a couple of larger sizes for use further down the line.

I started making these trousers before we knew the gender of our little baby, but I find the concept of gender-specific baby clothing pointless and annoying so I love that she now has a varied selection of garments! My favourites so far are the magpie and fuscia pair pictured above and the leopard and jade pair in the centre of the top image. Disco baby!!!

I loved this magazine so much that I told my mum about it, who very sweetly offered to buy me a subscription for my birthday. Rather than wait until my actual birthday (end of October in case you were planning a whip-round) she went ahead and bought the subscription and I already have three copies of my own now. As soon as she is big enough for a garment to fit her for more than a couple of months, I'll start integrating more of her second-hand clothing selection with me-made garments. I can't wait!

Refashion Friday Inspiration: Breton-Effect Lace Embellished T-shirt

This is a super-simple idea for creating a Breton-effect top with a twist. Making the stripes with navy lace on a white background gives a feminine touch to what is usually quite an androgenous garment. This effect can be created by simply applying lengths of lace to an existing T-shirt, or (as I have done here) applied to the front piece after deconstructing and before reconstructing an old, larger, plain T-shirt. 

My version started out life as an unwanted mens oversized white T-shirt which I recut using a self-drafted bateau-neck T-shirt pattern. I used strips of jersey harvested from the T-shirt to bind the neckline. This was the only navy lace I had to hand, but I'd love to see this effect created with thinner lace as well. And of course the colour combo needn't be the traditional navy and white!  

New Baby: New Clothes?

It's time to address a subject that I've had seven months to develop an opinion about now. I am of course talking about baby clothes and how I plan to dress my baby. What have we got for our baby to wear when she comes out? SO MUCH: is the answer!!!

After the first scan went well, I started hitting up the charity shops and a nearly-new sale for baby grows, vests and anything else that looked in good condition. At first it was a few things here and there, then we found that the charity shop at the end of our road sells all its baby clothes for 30p a garment! Umm, I went mental in there and hoovered up all the nice things, regardless of colour (i.e. gender) which seemed to really confuse the more conservative shop assistants, particularly when I told them we already knew the sex of our baby! And then the donations started to come in. Friends and relatives with babies and toddlers started giving us bags of baby garments (and heaps of equipment and other stuff). Even an associate of my best friend's dad who I have never met kindly gave us what must be over a hundred pound's worth of stuff. 

Sorting through it all I realised we had more 0-3 months things than we would possibly ever need so I had to place an embargo on myself when near charity shops and start donating some things to a friend of mine who is also expecting but not quite as prepared as we are in terms of 'stuff'. These two drawers pictured above and below are stuffed full with all of the 0-3 months clothes we now have, except for a couple of outdoor padded suits that won't fit in here. 

So, aside from a few pairs of tiny socks (eye-wateringly cute, BTW) and the trousers I have made (blog post to follow), EVERYTHING we have acquired so far, clothes, equipment, furniture, etc, is second-hand. The reasons behind this are predominantly ethical and secondarily financial. 

Ethical

As I have talked and written about many times, I dress myself exclusively in self-made or second-hand garments, aside from bras and hosiery. I do this consciously and deliberately for a variety of reasons that I feel passionately about. My feelings about the environmental damage caused by the production and transportation of mass-produced garments, the welfare of the workers in those industries, the 'disposability' of fast-fashion and the comparative lack of satisfaction shopping awards us compared to sewing or thrifting are not going to go away because I'm about to become a mother. In fact the opposite is happening. I'm more aware than ever of the shitty state our global eco-system is in (BTW, have you watched 'The Island President' yet? Such an amazing film) and the way our capitalist financial systems prioritise profit over human life, safety and well-being, and I feel guilty and embarrassed about the world we are leaving our children. 

My daughter is not going to be in any danger from second-hand clothing that has been thoroughly laundered before she wears it. Nor from unbroken equipment or furniture that has had a good clean before she touches it. There is so much damn baby stuff already out there in existance that has barely or not even been used (so many of the garments I've bought second-hand or been given still have the original price tags on), it will not make me a bad mother for (re)using those existing resources rather than buying more brand-new mass-produced items that will be useless to us within a couple of months. 

In fact I believe the opposite. I believe I'm a better mother for trying, at least in some limited way, to put less pressure on the social and environmental fractures that unchecked consumerism is causing. I am the first to admit I live a far from 'perfect' life (if such a thing exists) in terms of my carbon foot-print etc., but I will at least be able to have something to say for myself when she inevitably asks me what me and her dad where doing to stem the damage our generation is inflicting right now.

Financial

Aside from the ethical reasoning behind buying (or receiving) second-hand things where possible for our baby, ourselves and our home, there is no denying that there are real financial benefits to be enjoyed. I've written and spoken in the past about how being self-employed since losing our jobs has had its ups and downs and how it helps to have a certain disposition to ride those waves. 

Recently Pat and I attended a four week course called Parentskool that was chock full of advice for first-time parents of 0-6 month babies. A lot of the discussions revolved around what items and types of items are good and not so good to buy for a baby, including buggies/prams, high chairs, breast milk expressing machines, clothing, cots/bedding, nappies and much more. After a couple of sessions it dawned on me that none of the other couples had any intention of buying second-hand items for their babies, aside from the items that friends and family had already given them. I guess prioritising second-hand options when sourcing things is now so ingrained in me that it occasionally surprises me when people that I can really relate to in many other ways don't feel the same about that too. Then thinking about it a bit deeper, I realised through all the discussions we'd been having that all the other couples were in a much higher income bracket than Pat and I so they didn't have that extra incentive to source the cheaper second-hand options. 

We are kind of in a funny situation in that we are classed (in the UK) as a low-income household, but not low enough to be entitled to any assistance or benefits. I have applied for and been told I'm entitled to Maternity Allowance (the self-employed person's version of a salaried employee's maternity pay) which isn't much but will help with my disappearance of income at the end of my pregnancy and first chunk of our daughter's life. Plus, when she comes along there are some benefits and assistance we will then be able to receive that are designed to help make sure she is secure and well-nourished. As I've said before, I'm not in the habit of overly planning or worrying about the future, so we'll see what happens. 

However, the upside of being self-employed and therefore more flexible is that, unlike the other Parentskool couples who all have complicated plans for their maternity and paternity leave and for what will happen when those allocations dry up, we have time on our side. All being well, touch-wood, Pat and I will be able to share childcare so one or both of us will be with her all the time. We won't need to worry about finding the cheapest nannies or nurseries to leave her with, or experience the guilt (not that anyone should necessarily feel guilty about going back to work) of leaving their baby with strangers, or wrestle with the frustrating reality that childcare costs about as much as the wages you are going back to work to earn. 

We've had a tricky spell, financially speaking, recently. And I'm sure that if we'd gone out and bought new all the things we've so far acquired second-hand, we would be in a really difficult situation right now. And there really is enough to concern ourselves with at the moment with the prospect of very shortly becoming parents. 

Refashion Friday: Spotty Jersey Dress to Maternity T-shirt

I promise I am not moaning in the slightest, but the weather in the UK has been HOT for the last couple of weeks! Last week I realised that I didn't have anything with short sleeves to wear to preggers yoga. Oh, if only I could sew.... hahaha!!!!! So anyway, I made the T-shirt pictured above.  

I picked up the large navy spotty jersey dress in a charity a month or so back. In fact, I didn't buy it when I first saw it. I later realised I was a dumb arse and went back the next day, and thankfully it was still there. When visiting charity shops I've recently started to make a bee-line for the larger sized dresses as my first port of call. This dress is the perfect example of just how much sewable fabric you can get for your money. After washing and unpicking it I found I had sufficient fabric for a gathered-side maternity T-shirt will ample left for either a pair of undies or a baby garment of some description. Not bad for £4.50, plus the fabric quality is really lovely. 

Anyways, this T-shirt is based on the basic self-drafted T-shirt pattern I made my striped long sleeve T-shirt from (but with a slightly higher neckline and short sleeves) and adapted using my gathered-side maternity top technique (tutorial can be found here). Because the front T-shirt pattern piece gets extended, the pattern piece ended up being a bit too long to cut in one from skirt section of this dress, so  I cut it in two pieces, creating a seam across the front yoke area. I then disguised the seam with a length of red ric rac that I had in my stash which I think adds a nice little pop of colour as well. That's the thing with refashioning/remaking existing garments, you are often forced to be a bit more creative with your cutting than if you started from a flat piece of 'pure' fabric! Most of my sewing projects these days use fabric from my stash. But I occasionally I like to source some 'new-to-me' secondhand fabric or existing garment to start with. As my current stash becomes smaller, I imagine that increasingly I'll be looking to larger sized charity shop garments such as this for my sewing projects. 

So what about you? Have you had any recent refashioning/remaking successes? Any refashioning plans for the weekend?