maternity sweat pants--MUST HAVE!!!

Long time no blog huh????  Well as the count down to baby gets closer, my desire to do....ANYTHING gets smaller and smaller.  I have a feeling that in a few weeks it will disappear all together.  BUT I must say that this latest endeavor has been my BEST IDEA EVER!!!  For me that is....it may not have ANY use for you, but I thought I would share anyway.  I may have mentioned this before, but I get ENORMOUS pregnant.  Not the cute litte basketball belly disappears before you leave the hospital pregnant.  OH NO....I am talking almost double in size, unrecognizable as the same person BIG.  Like cannot go into public without people asking questions big.  In the last 2 days I have had a little boy at the mall point at my belly and ask(ever so politely) "WHAT do you have IN there???"  AND a little old lady in a scooter at the grocery store asked if I needed her to help me grab something off the shelf.  YES pregnancy for me is a VERY humbling experience.  That being said....I will get back to the topic at hand.  SWEAT PANTS. As a stay at home mommy I try to avoid wearing sweats EVERY day, but as a huge pregnant about to give birth mommy I am pretty much in them all the time.  BUT they are not as comfy for me for 2 reasons.  1.  I have a c-section scar that gets rubbed by them because they sit right under my belly....not fun.  AND 2.  I sometimes end up looking like this nice gentlemen....

Not Pretty!!!  ALSO...I remember after my last c-section I had a hard time finding things to wear that did not hurt my incision.....SOOOO really long story a little shorter.....I decided to hack up my sweats and make them into TRUE maternity sweats (with a full belly panel).

If you have managed to read through that monster story and are interested in your own maternity sweats.....here is what I did.

You will need:

sweats that fit (even if the waist band is snug)

an old t-shirt that fit before you were pregnant (needs to have some spandex in it)

sewing machine and maybe a serger

about 15 minutes

First, I cut the waist band off of my sweats...try to keep track of the front because it is lower than the back of the pants....this will help the panel hit in the right spot. BTW.....sorry for the blurry pictures.  I allowed my 2 year old photography nut help take the pics...she is still learning:)

 Next, I cut the bottom off of an old t-shirt.  I cut right under the arm pits because I wanted a long panel and my shirt was pretty short....you might want to measure how long you want your panel and cut accordingly. You will be using the BOTTOM hem of the t-shirt as the TOP hem of the panel, so cut with that in mind.  The shirt needs to have some spandex in it so that it streches, but does not stretch out.  I used one of my old favoriteTarget t-shirts that has the double layer in the front (anybody else have these in every color and go back every spring for more???)  I also know that GAP t-shirts are nice material to work with....but not cheap to cut up sometimes:)

 Next, turn your pants inside out and put your t-shirt tube down into the pants (right sides touching).  SOOO your bottom hem of your shirt should be DOWN in your pants and your raw edge should be lined up with the raw edge of your pants.  Then line up your side seams on both sides and pin.  This will make your panel match up to your pants and not look so HOMEmade. 

 Then, find as close to the center of your tube as possible and pin that to the center of your pants.  Next, try to match up the edges and pin.  You wanna spread the shirt evenly around the pants (although they might not match up perfect) so that you don't get huge pleats.  You may however have to stretch it here and there and have some small pleats....no biggie. Then I just sewed around the top edge with a 1/2 inch seam.  And finally serged around that seam with my serger to make it even more sturdy.  If not using a serger I would zig zag around the edge or double stitch your seam.  Maybe it is just my enormo tummy, but I need my panel to be EXTRA sturdy.  My self esteem could not handle a belly panel ripping off right now....just sayin!!

 VOILA...just turn your pants right side out and you have the most comfiest pair of sweats you can imagine.  I now have 2 pairs and seriously as soon as my other sweats get out of the wash I will be doing this to everything I can get my little hands on. 

Good luck...and btw...I won't judge you if you make these for your not pregnant self either..shhhh it will be our little secret;)