Two Knit Maternity Tops
A few weeks ago, inspired by the KNITerviews, I hauled out my serger and a pile of knits and started cutting some maternity tops. I managed to get two finished (and a third mostly finished), and here they are (I took these pics at about 30 weeks a couple weeks ago):
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I used another knit top from my closet to make a pattern for these. My goal was to make a few tees that would work post-partum too, so I'm hoping these won't get too stretched out by the Amazing Belly here so that I will still be able to wear them after Baby Boy comes. My belly is even bigger now than it was in these pics and my belly button is even more of an outie, if that's even possible.
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When you’re using woven fabrics, you definitely need to make some modifications to turn a standard women’s pattern into a maternity top. Some examples would be raising the waist, adding width on the sides, adding length to the bottom, or bowing the front bottom hem downward so that it’s curved (my friend Kelly of Cut Cut Sew actually did a guest post for me on this topic a couple of years ago that you might be interested in).
The great thing about using knits is that for the most part, if you just make a standard tee pattern LONGER (so that it will completely cover the belly) and use a SUPER STRETCHY knit fabric (so that it won’t get permanently stretched out by your big belly), those are really the only maternity modifications you need to make.
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You could also add some shirring or gathering to the front sides before sewing the front to the back, to create more "belly room," but I skipped that because I don't want to have to unpick and redo the side seams before I can wear them this spring. Let's be realistic, retrofitting older sewing projects is not going to be a huge priority once I have this baby.
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I found this tealy-green knit at Haberman and the stripe came from this knit fabric shop based in Korea (so be aware that you need to watch your shipping costs). I like the coral knit a ton better than the green knit; it’s really thick and stretchy and seems to be standing up to wear much better than the green one, which is already starting to pill. I do have a post half-composed in my head about the knits I REALLY love and where to buy them though, so I’ll try and work on that next week.