O' Fun For... lazy bums

No, this isn't about bums. Just the lazy. I am officially going on blog maternity leave. The O' Fun For All blog administrators are very generous with their maternity policy- I get leave until the kid is born plus maybe a month or so, depending on how long it takes before life gets relatively normal again. I am due to have this kid April 30, but I'll at least let you know when she comes on out to join us, and possibly post something here and there in the meantime, or maybe not. So, starting now, this post is....

On Maternity Leave

See you once this kid decides to leave my poor bladder/back/stomach space alone!!

O' Fun For... thwarting my attempts at plumbing

...or at least my attempts to sport the plumber's choice in pants.

It's all thanks to Spandex. This is rather shocking in light of my history with the stretchy sparkly fabric. One time in high school during cross country practice I made a wayward comment about Spandex involving the drill team, which was overheard (and misunderstood) by a very indignant Drill Team coach, who then passed the information on to the rest of her team. This lead to my being forced into writing an apology to the entire drill team on behalf of the cross country team, and getting cussed out in the halls by some drill teamers who were very defensive of their Spandex. (Who then turned away in unison and marched down the hall, arms flapping and heads bobbing in time to their marching... no, but that would have been a lot cooler...)

So who would have thought my saggy pants savior would have come in Spandex form?! I am humbled. And now, to show my new found respect for the elastic fabric of the gods, here is my...

STRETCHY PANTS TUTORIAL!

This is a picture-riffic tutorial on how to make maternity pants that actually stay up! It's true! They'll be there to cover your rapidly expanding bum through it all- the sitting and standing, the bending, the climbing of stairs... you get the idea. Let's begin...

You'll need:

*one pair of jeans, preferably low rise with a bit of stretch
*one big ol' piece of Spandex- not too thin a piece, preferably the kind that stretches up and down as well as side to side. (check out SpandexWorld- they have a minimum purchase requirement, but you could get extra to make a swimsuit... you know, for that time far off into the future when you decide it is safe to wear a swimsuit again...)
*plus a tape measure, thread, pins, all that sewing stuff

I have made a bunch of these now, and since they do- to some extent- grow with you, the specific size of the jeans you start with doesn't matter too much, as long as they are a few sizes bigger than you wear while not all knocked up. Really it's all about whether or not your preggo thighs want to fit into them or not that really matters.

STEP ONE: measure around your jeans about one inch or so below the waistband, all the way around. Now subtract a few inches from this, and you have the length for your Spandex measurement.

STEP TWO: Cut a rectangle from your spandex measuring 12 inches x the measurement you got at the end of step one.

STEP THREE: With right sides together, fold the Spandex rectangle in half so the 12" sides are touching. Sew a seam along the 12" side. (See the picture, my words are not working...) You should now have a Spandex tube. Try it on around your middle and make sure it is snug. Then take it in or taper the seam or whatnot as needed. In my example I needed to take the seam in more at the top then the hip area, so it tapers at the top. Just how snug to make it depends on how thick and stretchy your fabric is. The point is to make it stay put without your needing to hold it up while still not crushing your internal organs. Cut off extra seam allowance from the side seam.

This pic shows the seams:



This one shows how the tube should fit, (and what I have learned in my Photoshop class...):

STEP FOUR: Really quick before you forget, hand sew the zipper of your pants closed about halfway down the fly, like this:

STEP FIVE: With right sides together, pin your Spandex tube to your pants. The tube is smaller than the pants, so stretch the tube to fit as you pin. Make sure to line the tube seam up with one of the side seams on the pants. Now, hopefully to clarify and not confuse, I'll explain what you should have here. Looking at the pants you should see the pants inside the tube, and the tube is inside out and upside down. (The part you measured for your hips is on top and pinned to the jeans, the part you measured around your rib area is scrunched up awkwardly around the thighs of the jeans. If that was confusing just ignore it...)

It should look something like this:

STEP SIX: Use a zigzag or some stitch with a bit of stretch and sew the tube to the jeans about 1/2" from the top. (look at the picture above...) Start at one side of the fly and work around until you get to the other side of the fly. Don't sew over the zipper. Your machine won't like that. Also be careful for metal rivets or snaps or things like that as you sew.

**Reinforcing all seams by sewing twice or something is recommended since they will get a lot of strain put on them as you get freakishly huge**

That's it! Pull that panel on up and ta-da! Enjoy your pants! You can wear them before you get too big by zipping the fly like normal and folding the waistband over your hips to keep your pants firmly in place, like a belt. As you get larger and larger, you can unzip the fly (to the point where you sewed it shut at least) and pull that stretchy tube o' fun up to yer armpits there under your shirt.

Here are the pants worn with the waistband folded down:


And here they are worn with it pulled up:


Now go do some squats! No, that sounds tiring. Maybe instead put on your stretchy pants and go eat some brownies while you watch American Idol. Yes. Try that.

O' Fun For... fatties

I have been in a sewing frenzy this week. I am going to bet that I am having either a girl, or a very feminine boy. I hit the $1 and $2 fabric shelves at good ol' Wally's and completely lucked out. You never know, it's kind of hit and miss. You could score some cute swimsuit fabric, or maybe all there is that day are bolts and bolts of velvety, rust-colored upholstery fabric. Well, I came away dreaming of fatty clothes-a-plenty for my maternity-wearing days. (I've outgrown my jeans already. What is the deal with that?!) After scouring my boxes and boxes of Grama T. patterns, I was set to get rollin'.

Here we see the first shirt I made:



The pattern was a super-long v-neck tunic, and I only changed a few things. I added gathering under the bust and on the back, lettuce-edged the sleeves and neck out of laziness, added ric-rac (I may have spelled that wrong, but all the computer had for an alternate spelling suggestion was Richard. I am pretty sure I did not add Richard to the neckline. That could be awkward...) to the neck and some pleats to the middle. The next picture shows the gathered section in the back that I added to feel less tent-y:



Here in the next picture is a high-tech simulation of me being wayyy pregnant whilst wearing the shirt. (In real life I will look more like Monica from Friends in the fat suit.) I added 5 pleats on each side in the front to make it nice and roomy:



...and here is the same expert pregnancy simulation, but this time as if I were having twins: (I would like to credit Toby for the use of his soccer ball.)



The entire shirt, including thread, was about $2.50 when all was said and done. Woo-hoo!

I also made another preggo shirt. I tried to spray-stencil some flowers with spray paint, and it just had so many issues! I have been pretty successful with the freezer paper stencil so far, but only with fabric-specific spray paint. I had read that regular spray-paint worked too, so I thought I'd give it a try. It looked pretty crappy. Fortunately I had sprayed the fabric piece before I sewed it toether, so I just sewed it on inside-out, since the paint looked much better on the back of the fabric than the front. I also had to design my own sleeves for this pattern. They more-or-less worked. (Yay)



I have been cranking out the drawings of clothes I would like to make. This whole clothes-sketching thing was made much simpler by printing off this sample figure from Burdastyle. I just add some roundness to the middle, and there you go! I'll show more as I make them.