Reconstructed Maternity Clothing

Turn this Men's t-shirt

Into

This Maternity top

Lay your shirt out flat on the floor then fold exactly in half with the design side facing up. You want to make sure to get all of the design into your shirt.

Place your template on top of this to cut.
your template can be a professional pattern, a shirt you know will fit you in pregnancy, or after you've been doing this for a while you can just wing it and cut without fear or template.

Normally I cut the sleeves off first just to have them out of the way and less material to deal with. Then I cut the front from the back along the seem lines and cut each side sperately. You don't want to cut the neckholes for the back and front exactly the same. The front ofshirts are usually lower than the backs.

I cut the shirt into the correct shape and go back to cut the sleeves. If you've made a sweater before you know that there are curves to the sleeves and to the armholes that make them fit better. If you aren't used to sewing you may want to get a pattern or undo your template shirt at the seems so you will have an idea of how the sleeve and armholes are suppose to curve.

I cut a deeper neck hole in the front. and a slit which doesn't show here. You can see the curve of the sleeve though. I cut the sleeve to be a bit shorter but I left the seemed part on so I wouldn't have to seem it or serge it.

Putting it together:
1. sew shoulder fronts to back
2. Sew sleeves onto armholes
3. Sew down the sleeve and body to finich the side seem
4. Serge the neck, or turn under and sew for a more finished edge.

This is the shirt inside out already sewn. It's hard to see, but the bottom is uneven. I left it that way because I find it easier to make the bottom even as the last thing. No matter how even they started out, I always had to straighten them. Now I don't bother to try and keep them even, I just fix them in the end.

This is my favorite way to cut a bottom weather it's a preggie shirt or not.
Just to explain, it's higher on the side and has a curved front and back.
Then I just serge this or if I want a more finished look, I"ll turn it under and sew.

With the t-shirts I reconstruct, I like the rough look, so I serge most of the open edges, it's fast and these days it's become the trend for shirts,even in retail, to have this simple edge.

Sheena doesn't have much of a shapely body, I tried to give her a little help with a bag of wool. You can see that it's still a cute and comfy preggie top. I paid $4 for the t-shirt at Goodwill because it was brand new. You can get shirts at good will anywhere form $1 to $8 depending on what you want.

What size do you get so you don't have to add any more material to the sides?

If you normally wear in women's:	Get this size in Men's or larger:
Small to Medium	XL
Medium to Large	XXL
Large to XLarge	3XL

I'm not trying to exclude any sizes by stopping here, but it's rare to find a decent Men's T in anything larger than 3XL at Goodwill. If you need something larger your best bet will be to buy the T-shirt you like and add in some material on the sides. I'll do one of these soon so you can see what I mean.

While you're at Goodwill, pick up some jeans, skirt or pants that you like. You want them to be your size or one size bigger (If you're like me your butt will spread a bit too). I'm going to reconstruct a couple of pairs of jeans and skirts to fit the new belly.

 

If you don't want to do your own shirts but have some you want done, email me.

 

All information and photos - everything - is the sole property of Amy King Copyright 2004. This is provided for your personal use and no photos or info are to be distributed without my written permission.