May 2018 in Review

May was another good month for sewing garments. I participated in Me-Made-May and made four pieces of clothes: another pair of maternity Seamwork Shelly Leggings, some maternity Seamwork Kaye Shorts, a Deer and Doe Givre Maternity Tee and a Seamwork Julia Tank. I also made four In Color Order Lined Drawstring Bags to wrap Mother’s Day gifts in. 

I liked my gray pair of maternity hacked Shelly Leggings so well that I made another pair, this time out of Robert Kaufman Laguna Jersey in Heather Navy. They were an essential piece in my maternity and "fourth trimester" wardrobe. 

After making the Shelly Leggings, I had enough fabric left to try my hand at the Seamwork Kaye Shorts pattern. I drafted a new waistband piece and cut two to make a maternity panel like I had done with the Shelly Leggings. The resulting shorts were perfect for wearing under maternity dresses. I’m planning on making more regular Kaye shorts in the future since they’re the perfect pattern from using up scraps leftover from bigger projects. 

The only actual maternity pattern that I tried during my pregnancy was the Givre Maternity Tee by Deer and Doe. I made the Version B top in the third trimester size and made two disastrous mistakes. First, I messed up the PDF printing. I printed it at Staples since our home printer broke, and used the complimentary ruler to measure the test square. It was only a couple millimeters off, and rather than trying to fiddle with the Staples printer, I decided that was good enough. It wasn’t. I also let too much time pass between when I took my measurements and when I made the tank top. During pregnancy, it’s not just your bump that grows! I ended up with a shirt that bunched weirdly in the shoulders (due to the printing error), and was a little too small in the bust (due to the measuring error). I was so frustrated with the end result that I threw away the pattern pieces and washed my hands of the whole pattern. Ironically enough, this was one of the few shirts that still fit my bump at the end of my pregnancy, so I ended up wearing it a lot, even though it wasn’t perfect. 

After my failed Givre Maternity Tank, I grabbed a Seamwork Julia Tank that I had cut out the previous summer, before I was pregnant. Even though I knew it wouldn’t fit, sewing it up was soothing. Who knows, maybe it will fit by next summer. Even if it doesn’t, it was nice getting it out of my WIP pile. I’d like to give it another try sometime, because it’s a nice basic, and I enjoyed sewing it. 

At the last Seattle Modern Quilt Guild retreat I attended, I won a bundle of Karen Lewis fabric. I broke into it to make a few Lined Drawstring Bags for wrapping Mother’s Day presents in. The pattern is by Jeni Baker of In Color Order.