I hate buying maternity clothes. They seem like such a waste of money, especially considering Q is probably our last baby.
Unfortunately, even though this is my third pregnancy, I don't have a ton of usable maternity clothes. Noob was born in January, and Littles was born in June but in northern California, so a lot of my maternity clothes are long sleeved. They're not doing me much good now that it's already in the 80s in Texas! And I don't really want to hide my bump in bulky t-shirts for the next three months.
Now, cheap maternity clothes... that, I could do!
Enter Joann's clearance, and my local thrift store. (Please ignore my terrible hair and tired look in these pictures. I had to take them late on Saturday night because I'm on a business trip this week.)
The shirt is a "boyfriend T" that was on clearance at Joann's for $3, plus I had a coupon for 25% off. Not bad. I made it into a rouched maternity shirt, using the instructions on this blog. It's super easy. You basically sew elastic into the seam allowance on the sides of the shirt, which makes it more fitted around your belly.
I got a size large -- normally I wear a small or a medium. But it's still a little short on me, especially after making it rouched. It would've worked better for me earlier in this pregnancy, or with my earlier pregnancies, where my belly didn't grow as quickly. Oh well, not much money spent, and it'll probably work well postpartum!
The pants are from one of my local thrift stores. I do most of my shopping for kids' clothes there, and on a trip a few months ago, I found that they have a whole maternity section, too. Even better, they do "99 cent Mondays," every Monday, where all items with a certain tag color are 99 cents. So I got these pants for just 99 cents!
These are actually maternity pants, in my correct size, but the elastic waistband was all stretched out, so they didn't stay up. But that's easy enough to fix!
I debated a couple of different methods, and finally decided to sew in a Bella Band. Bella Bands are tubes of fabric designed to use over unbuttoned pre-pregnancy pants, so that you can get more wear out of them. I also use them to hold up maternity pants that like to fall down... so a no-sew solution to this particular problem would have been to just use the Bella Band over the pants. Done.
But I find it to be a pain to deal with two separate pieces of fabric whenever I have to go to the bathroom (which is kind of often these days). And I happened to have an extra Bella Band. I bought a khaki-colored one at a consignment store for about $5 back when I was pregnant with Noob, and liked it enough that I asked for a navy-colored one for Christmas this year. I've used the navy-colored one a lot, because it goes so well with jeans, which is what I wear most of the time. So the old khaki one has just been sitting in my drawer. I figured I'd sew it into the pants, rather than leaving it as a separate piece.
This was super easy as well. I made four evenly-spaced marks on the Bella Band, as well as the waistband of the pants. I turned the Bella Band inside out and put it over the waistband of the pants, then matched up the marks I'd made. Finally, I secured the Bella Band to the pants using a zig-zag stitch, stretching the Bella Band evenly as I sewed. (The marks helped me do this.) I could've cut off the original waistband, but I left it, just in case I messed things up sewing in the Bella Band.
The final result:
I looooooooooove these! The pants are so comfortable. And you can wear the Bella Band all sorts of different ways -- I actually have it folded in half in the picture above, but you can wear it all the way up over your belly, or fold it even more so it sits below your belly. Really versatile as your bump grows, and then shrinks again postpartum. No saggy maternity pants here!
Of course, Bella Bands normally retail for around $30, so it's hardly cost-effective to buy them just to sew into pants :) But as I said, I got this one for cheap at a consignment shop. And this blog also has instructions for DIY belly bands, or for converting regular pants to maternity pants. So, lots of cheap options for doing something like this.
In addition to the above, I got a couple of actual maternity shirts on clearance at Joann's as well, again for $3 minus 25% off. They fit fine as-is, but I decided to make these rouched as well, to add a nice little detail.
Love these shirts! They fit so nicely, especially rouched. I bought mediums, and they have enough length that I think they may last me till Q's birth!
By the way, the shorts I'm wearing were another "99 cent Mondays" purchase, so this whole maternity outfit cost just a little over $3. Now that, I don't mind paying!
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