Thursday, November 13, 2008

New Mama Sacks

Within days of getting a BFP for V2.0 I discovered that the two maternity wear shops within walking distance of my house had closed down. No biggie, I thought, I'll just hit the burbs when it's time.

Not long ago, I started to strain the seams of all but my most forgiving (read 'elastic waisted') of regular clothes. So I dusted off the yellow pages and to my horror, found the only mat wear shops were over an hour's drive away (not counting, of course, Targ.et, Big.W and (shudder) Kma.rt- ok for the very basics, but not nice frocks, y'know).

So, i'm having to DIY. Quel horreur! I have to sew! What an imposition!!

Yes, i still have my clothes from Patrick's pregnancy, but they're oh, so very 2 years ago (I jest, of course. They are stored in a cupboard in Pat's room that's too tall for me to open and I keep forgetting to ask MrT before Paddy goes to sleep at night. That and having worn them almost continually for the last three months of P's pregnancy i am sick of the sight of most of them). I could also just buy plus-sized stuff, but the problem with that when you're already uncomfortably chubby is that this option only tends to make me look fat(-ter), not pregnant, and I really don't want to have people think I have really let myself go. (I'm already contemplating doing a presentation to our department meeting on something unrelated so I can slip it onto a slide for those not up on the office gossip who aren't in the know. Although, on the other hand, I did try that with my "Breastfeeding pharmacology and anaesthesia" talk which I announced was "a subject close to my...err...chest" but people still didn't get what this newly-returned-to-work-new-mum had to do for half an hour twice a day. Sheesh. Doctors. Well, male doctors, it has to be said can be pretty dim. Even the ones with lactating wives and partners. "You have to do what?" "Express.""Eh?""Lactate""We don't need a lactate on this gas, the patient's fine""Not the patient, (dumbarse), me""Sorry?""Look, if I don't go and pop my jugs out into a cup then there's going to be a sticky milky mess on the front of this scrub suit pretty soon!""Oh (reddening), I see". I digress (just a little)).

I've got two new patterns from companies I don't normally use- Kwik.Sew and Bu.rda- There are just so few maternity patterns- and then ones that aren't plain goddawful. Even in Vo.gue. And there's another thing- they all tell you to use your pre-pregnancy measurements for bust, but whothefark keeps an up-to-date measurement of themselves just in case they fall pregnant and need to make new clothes? (Erin, maybe you should!).
Here are some of the fabrics I stashed up on my first day off:




Here is Patrick helping me to pin the pattern out (he's so useful)

Here is Patrick doing a 'monkey see, monkey do' with his sunglasses (ever since I got a fringe cut I spend most of my day with either my reading glasses or my sunnies on top of my head to keep it out of my eyes. Dumb progesterone-induced idea).
And yesterday doing his bit for Movember with a milkshake.
And drawing with dadda a few days ago
The first frangipani of summer. Horrible, blurry phone photo



3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

i love that first fabric!

14/11/08 01:27  
Blogger jen said...

yeah, I bought a heap of it thinking I could do a top and a skirt and stuff- in fact it's kind of dumb because you would expect the contrast red background to go on the bottom, right? Nup. The greatest stretch is horizontally across the print, which sucks, because I wanted to have that contrast on the bottom of my garments, but I can't without it stretching in all the wrong ways. No wonder it was on the sale table. I also have some of the same stuff in green and brown I bought a long time ago, realised the print was 90* out and put it aside. When i saw the red version I just couldn't remember why I hadn't used the green and brown (I assumed I had run out of time and energy) until I got home and started laying out the fabric.
Grrrrr!

14/11/08 14:54  
Blogger E. from Pot o' Gold said...

I love the one that's red with flowers on it. I have to say that I laughed out loud when you said I should (I'm assuming it was me) measure my bust in case I wanted to sew my own maternity clothes. I'm in awe that you sew! I wish I knew how to use a sewing machine. It would take me a really long time to sew my clothing by hand (the only way I know).

15/11/08 14:26  

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