maternity – Stacey Stitch

Luckily for me I got gifted a lot of vintage maternity sewing patterns when I told friends our news, unluckily I have been too tired in an evening or too busy with the impending arrival to spend time sewing. I have, however, had the last week off work to do some nice things and generally just have a break from my busy job (who knew growing a human inside you would make you so tired?!).

I finally got round to making the skirt and top view from Simplicity 4872, which looks to me late 50s/early 60s. I know vintage maternity patterns aren’t everyone’s cup of tea but after extensive research online I really couldn’t find that much that had been made up for me to look at. So if you’re considering making vintage maternity clothes this may be the post for you.

Before I start I would like to say that I wear tight maternity clothes as well as not so tight ones, so when I considered this pattern I was drawn to the skirt and top – knowing that stretch fabrics weren’t commonly used back in the day I knew it would be a bit of a boat load of fabric situation, especially the skirt as it wasn’t the old style with the cut out bump part which seems to be more commonly in use in the 40s/50s.

Getting slightly annoyed with the fact that a lot of modern maternity clothes are black I went with some lovely colourful Robert Kauffman raindrop maternal for the top, and some orange cotton for the skirt.

The Top

I should really say at this point that I have never used a pattern with hole punches marking different parts of the pattern (i.e. darts etc) – is there a name for this sort of pattern? Truth is, I’ve always been a little put off and scared by them. It seems a little bit silly now I have used one, as there’s no difference really once you follow the instructions!

With that in mind I had everything cut out (I shortened the pockets a little as I was short of fabric) and marked everything up double checking that I marked the pattern pieces correctly.

The top was relatively easy to put together apart from when it came to the pleat extension parts at the side.

As usual with vintage patterns they do expect that you know a lot of what you’re doing as everyone was making their own clothes back in the day.

I couldn’t tell if it was my dyslexia or not but it made little sense to me. I eventually did work it out and pinned and pressed.

Once I started putting the facings in though I soon hit a problem. Neck facing, no problem; armhole facings bit more of an issue.
Turns out my pleats weren’t right, but I was loathe going back and messing about with them again so I made the best of it and added an extra crease, hoping it would work out when I did the final press.

I added some vintage style buttons I had from an old issue of Mollie Makes magazine and voila, my top was complete.

The Skirt

The skirt went together quite well. I was unsure of it to begin with and some of the instructions took me a while to figure out (dyslexia strikes again) – I think it’s because of the markings, how to differentiate which dots mean what is a little tricky on these sort of patterns if you haven’t used them before. Point and case in the photo below!

It was only when I started stitching the back waistband (front is elasticated) that I realised exactly how much material there was.

The Completed Outfit

To say it makes me look huge is an understatement, but here it is in all its glory.

Needless to say we had a good old laugh when we were taking the photos and in the end I gave up even trying to make it look good.

The truth is, the skirt has to have a lot of material because it’s cotton but it does have the unfortunate effect of making me look about twice the size.

Alas, all was not lost. I actually quite like the top, even if I would rather never wear the skirt.

So I went and put a pair of my skinny mat jeans on and it looked quite good. In fact, I will be wearing it without a doubt.

What do you think? I’d love to hear people’s views on this, or if you’ve made any vintage maternity clothes? Let me know and thanks for reading.

For my first sew of the year I decided on adapting this new maternity pattern to make a vintage style outfit.

That’s correct, if you don’t follow me on Instagram then you might not have seen that I’m preggo, up le duff, got a bun in the oven etc.

I am not going to go all modern, I have picked up a few vintage patterns and my friends have loaned me some so there will be vintage maternity wear being made at some point but I thought it would be quite interesting to see how they compared against modern ones to make up.

Thinking along the lines of “if I lengthen this dress and make it glitzy it could totally look 70s disco-a-go-go” I opted for buying in a boatload of gold lame, without really thinking of the consequences.

Namely that lame is a bitch to sew.

While I was waiting for it to arrive I finally managed to clear out my lovely little sewing space in our dining room and started to read through the instructions (I also put a load of my spare vintage patterns on ebay if you fancy a look).

Which made no sense. How confusing is this? (or at least how confusing does my dyslexic brain want it to be).

I put my faith in the pattern and hoped when I cut the pieces out it would make more sense.

When the lame arrived I fell in LOVE, It is sooooo beautiful and undeterred I set about lengthening the pattern and cutting the extension pieces out (excuse the slippers).

I ran a few pieces through the machine to see what the fabric was like to sew. This did not go well. Now, I have always been told to use a zig zag stitch for stretch fabrics (I don’t own an overlocker) but this didn’t work.

After a stressful and annoying night I managed to get the front of the dress completed but only after a lot of turning the air blue and wondering why in the hell it wouldn’t sew like it was meant to.

Truth is, I’m still not sure – is it because the weight of the fabric is too heavy, so it’s not your typical stretch? (If anyone does know please tell me!).

The front knot part actually was pretty easy after I had the pieces in front of me – funny, it’s never the thing that you think is going to cause trouble that does, is it?

I sewed up the two back pieces and put the neck facing in and by this point I had opted to go for a straight stitch as it appeared to be working much better than zig zag and wasn’t making me want to cry. Damn the consequences.

What was the worst that couple happen? I could spend hours unpicking it when it didn’t hang or stretch properly? (yes….yes that is what could happen).

The sleeves, I decided, would be sewn in the cheat’s way as the fabric was so tricky.

Rather than sew them up then set them in, I sewed them into the arm holes without the sleeve seam sewn up, then sewed the seam of the sleeve at the same time as the side seams of the dress (try saying that quickly!).

I have to say, when they were in, it looked pretty good.

I tried it on. It looked good, it actually stretched the way it was meant to (thank the sewing Gods) so I could fit it over my ever expanding bosom and tum.

Now all I had to do was hem the sleeves and the dress, which turned out to be not that challenging, With the aid of clips (and pegs) I managed to get the length more or less right the first time. I only needed to adjust it slightly and once sewn up I was ready to go.

So here I am in all my shiny gold disco glory, pretty happy with how it’s turned out, even if I do look like a preggo space babe from the future.