Ch-ch-changes and Finished FESA item

Sit down... I have a confession to make...

I made the first pair of trousers on my Fall Essentials Sewalong list a few weeks ago. They are a grey chambray cotton with 5% linen blend. And now it is time to confess a little something... I have given myself an extra challenge in my FESA sewalong as I am expecting a baby! He or she is due in January. So I am about 25 weeks now. This was an unplanned surprise, so much so that I had given my maternity clothes away. To someone who lives in Poland - too far away and costly to post them back. I had also given away the cot, moses basket, car seat, highchair attachment, most of the baby clothes...etc, etc, are you seeing the situation? The only big item I still had was the pram.

So recently I have been thrifting and buying second hand things for baby. I managed to buy a beautiful cot bed (actually much nicer than our old one) from a friend of a friend, and a first stage car seat from another friend. I have been buying bits and pieces of baby clothes in the charity shops.

I cannot afford to be buying maternity clothes though. I just allowed myself one pair of second hand maternity jeans on ebay. They are at that stage where tend to fall down all day resulting in me permanently hoiking them up. I keep reminding myself that soon they will fit.

I have been lucky in that I happened to have made quite a lot of loose tops like Simplicity 3835 and my portfolio dress - these have been great to wear in this mid stage. BUT I am aware that at some point I may need a little extra space in my clothes.
So, I decided to start with maternity trousers. My trusty gap charity shop jeans saw me through to 22 weeks but just are too tight now. I searched for maternity patterns and to be honest the big pattern companies don't have many. I read some reviews of Easy Burda 8376 and decided to use this one as a good basic trouser pattern. Any pregnant readers out there, believe me, these are so easy to make. Only five pieces.

Seriously, this maternity sewing is great...no zips, no buttonholes, no waistbands. I loves it.

The trousers have a jersey panel that goes over the bump and they have a simple casing and elastic waist. I used an old t shirt to make the panel. The panel looks to me like a teddy bear's stomach but it is super comfortable. When it came to cutting out the trousers, being the meanie that I am, I tried to squeeze the 2 metres required from 1 metre of stash fabric. It worked but only just and I had to make an extra casing for the back from another piece of spotty scrap fabric. To give them a bit more length. They are just, just long enough but only because I have short legs! My only concern is that they won't be warm enough in a month or two. So I am thinking of making another pair in some winterish fabric, I am also thinking of using the jersey panel pattern piece to refashion some pre-made trousers into maternity but I just haven't seen any charity shop trousers I like recently.

However I liked making the trousers so much that I made some grey wool mix winter shorts from the same pattern. I have almost finished these. The photo shows the side pocket detail. I used the left over fabric from making my Uniform Project dress last year.

I am in love with these shorts even if I will look like a strange gender-mix of pregnant woman and school boy. That is weird I know. But they do look a bit like my son's school shorts. I will just have to make sure I don't wear them with a school jumper and satchel.