clothes for the size-skewing

[thanate]

I've spent a moderate (ok, large for me) amount of time wandering around malls doing maternity & baby reconnaissance and determined that infant clothes come in boy-specific, girl-specific, and white, and that the only maternity-specific garment I liked was a little above that day's mental price threshold. Grauwulf asks (not unreasonably) why I even bothered to look if I wasn't willing to pay $35 for a blouse that I can wear this winter and would probably continue to wear thereafter. Having discovered that the maternity mall shops are as uninspiring as the pattern books, the idea that I was looking for inspiration kind of falls flat... I've so far picked up four pairs of wearable pants at thrift stores (for under $20 total) but the cute blouse selection is much slimmer. I suspect that I am not the only one looking for tops that I will want to keep around post-pregnancy.

As for the pattern companies... well, McCalls technically has a symbol for patterns that "can be adapted for maternity" which as far as I could tell is used on about two blouses; Simplicity doesn't admit to anything, nor do any of their sister companies; and Butterick has about five patterns stuffed in the "Mens/Unisex/Sleepwear" section, one of which is actually cute, but I haven't managed to catch them on sale. As for baby patterns, there are five or six of them in seven or eight different permutations, almost all of which are theoretically girl clothes. (also, what is with the baby butt ruffles?)

Anyway, while I'd like a pants pattern just in case, I'm not too worried about them given the thrift store selection thus far, and I'm set for long dresses until I can't stand those anymore, but what I want more of (and actually have been wanting more of for... possibly almost a decade now? and have mostly not gotten around to making) is things in the blouse/babydoll dress line. Reasonably fitted shoulders & bust, looser below that (obviously), hemmed somewhere between hip- and knee-length. I've got a couple commercial patterns along these lines, and a diagram of the rectangles for a proper smock. Does anyone have any recommendations for historic styles/ patterns that I could adapt? I know regency or Italian Ren can have about the right shape, but I don't really know what's out there in terms of patterns or garment guides that are worth looking at, or what else might work for the right look. Suggestions? Bonus-points if it can be made to work well for nursing, too.

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Meanwhile, People I Know are off to have a fabulous time at Worldcon, and I am vaguely wistful that I don't actually want to go. But I don't, and so I have not spent today battling airport nonsense to get to Chicago. (I just get to fight the Grand Prix road closures to get into Baltimore for my volunteer shifts instead.)

Comments

[cheshiretiffy.livejournal.com]

Have you been to Burda Style? I'm on my phone so I can't really check for maternity, but they have a lot of patterns in general.

I'll keep an eye out at our Goodwill and see if I can't at least find something you could take apart to make a pattern.

I didn't wear maternity clothes at all. I wore empire dresses and those skirts with the shirred waists just under my belly with long tunics. Comfy and way cheaper since they were just going out of style again at the time.


Oh, here we go (http://www.burdastyle.com/pattern_store/patterns?creator=6&for=1&most_recent=1&pattern_garment_type=11). They don't have much.

And here's (http://15dollarstore.com/p/my-michelle-embroidered-peasant-top/5085095487572590) a shirt like I wore a lot, and from the same place, even. I got a few discounted dresses from there. Their shipping was reasonable at the time, but I've not ordered from them in a while.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Burda and Kwik-Sew have a couple things each-- I looked in *all* the books at JoAnn, and there were honestly about twelve or fifteen maternity patterns total, most of which were between boring and hideous. Apparently I'm just supposed to stop wearing attractive clothing for six months or so?

I'm good on the modern pattern thing (but thanks!), and I've got some peasant blouses, though most of them short-sleeve and probably going to be a little cold by the time February rolls around. Mostly I just need to get off the couch and actually make something, but I figured I'd see if anyone had inspiration in terms of dress patterns. (see me procrastinate further...)

On the whole, I don't think I'm going to be doing a lot of "real" maternity stuff, but having a few pairs of pants is great. And I think I've been promised one of those "loading..." maternity tees from Think Geek for a little farther along. :)