Maternity Dress diy

The news is out. My hus­band and I are hav­ing a baby lat­er this fall! So, there is no sur­prise that I recent­ly made a few mater­ni­ty and post­par­tum gar­ments for myself.

I was recent­ly inter­viewed by my dad, Chris God­frey, for his Sand­wich Gen­er­a­tion Radio Show. You can lis­ten to the audio show or read the full tran­script in the link here: Life of a Cou­ture Dress­mak­er and Fash­ion Designer

Here is a snip­pet from the radio show, when my dad asks about mater­ni­ty dress­mak­ing and style. 

You can order a cus­tom for­mal mater­ni­ty dress from me here: Mater­ni­ty Dress for Weddings

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Beau­ty Out­lasts the Beast

Chris-

And before that, did I see you work­ing on a mater­ni­ty gown this week.

Mary Grace-

Yep, I’m work­ing on mater­ni­ty clothes.

Chris-

How’s that going?

Mary Grace-

 It’s a learn­ing process. But’s only a learn­ing process because I am learn­ing what works for preg­nant ladies’ bod­ies and needs.

I thought some­thing would look good on me and then I real­ize, “Nope! This is not going to work on my preg­nant or post-par­tum body.”

 It was hard to find any mater­ni­ty clothes in stores. It’s nice hav­ing sewing skills and being able to cre­ate the cloth­ing I need for my body and lifestyle.

Chris-

How does that work? I know women are all dif­fer­ent sizes. So, some­thing may look good on one woman and not on the oth­er. Is the same true for mater­ni­ty or does every body work the same, in a sense?

Mary Grace-

Well, I guess most women will seek sim­i­lar styles and want to fit and hide the same body fea­tures. I’m learn­ing the lit­tle tricks of mater­ni­ty cloth­ing, like cov­er­ing up the arms, adding or elim­i­nat­ing things to cre­ate an illusion.

Yes­ter­day, I cre­at­ed a new dress design. I put way too much fab­ric in it, in par­tic­u­lar­ly the back of the dress. It was not where you want­ed extra fab­ric and it made the hips and butt look even big­ger. So I had to cor­rect that and makes changes to the final design. I also put a big bow on the shoul­ders to hide the back of the arms, which I would nor­mal­ly not do bows. In fact, my hus­band saw the bows and laughed. He did not think the dress looked like my usu­al style.

But, the bows were nec­es­sary and I left them on the design, which I can always adjust into nor­mal straps lat­er when I’m not pregnant.

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I pur­chased this beau­ti­ful white and red rose stretch cot­ton dur­ing my first trimester. I was very sick and nau­seous dur­ing the first few months and my sis­ters con­vinced me to buy a beau­ti­ful fab­ric for a mater­ni­ty dress. They said it would help me focus on the future and get through that peri­od of time. (I real­ly did not expect preg­nan­cy morn­ing sick­ness to be so awful. I real­ly should’ve been more sym­patric to my sis­ters dur­ing their preg­nan­cies. Sor­ry Katie and Tess!)

My sis­ters were right! Design­ing DIY mater­ni­ty gar­ments cer­tain­ly gave me some­thing to look for­ward to ear­ly on and now I feel good that I have clothes that fit. (Before my mater­ni­ty dress­es, I was wear­ing old pants and shorts and rolling them under my bel­ly- which was not com­fort­able or flat­ter­ing.) I look for­ward to wear­ing the pret­ty and cute mater­ni­ty dress­es for pho­tos, wed­dings, bap­tism, mass, and baby show­ers dur­ing all my pregnancies.

The dress­es are self-draft­ed mater­ni­ty sewing pat­terns.

This mater­ni­ty dress design is made to fit my body dur­ing and after preg­nan­cy. The gown is made with a sash and no waist­line seam, so that I can adjust the height of the waist with the detach­able belt after I have a baby.  The adjustable ties at the shoul­ders are meant to hide the top back of my arms. (I may adjust the straps or add sleeves later.)

Instead of mak­ing a dis­pos­able muslin mock-up for my for­mal flo­ral dress, I used cute blue and white striped linen to test my dress pat­tern and wear again for Sun­day mass or cock­tail par­ties. As you can see in the pho­tos below, I test­ed the dress style in both long and tea length. I took votes from Insta­gram on what length to cut for the flo­ral gown, which will be worn for future wed­dings and pos­si­bly the baby’s christening. 

The Insta­gram votes were split exact­ly down the mid­dle. I decid­ed to cut the flo­ral spe­cial occa­sion dress long, but hem it 6 inch­es short­er. In case I want it long in the future, I left the extra fab­ric in the hem of the dress.