New Maternity Clothes, Please! Blue Maternity Shirt

This is a new little series I'm doing. As most of you have noticed by my previous post, I am expecting our 3rd child in June. With this being my third pregnancy, I really want some new maternity clothes. Thank goodness we're about ready to be grown-ups now and move away with a job! But the downside, is that I have become very cheap in our years as students. I really can't bring myself to buy new maternity clothes #1, because in between my second pregnancy and now, I've acquired quite a few non-maternity clothes, that would easily fit a 9-month belly in an array of different styles. #2, ever since I've developed a love of refashioning, I've thought up ways to redo some of my existing maternity clothes to more fit my style and give me something exciting to wear. #3, though I grow sick of them, I do still have quite a selection of maternity clothes from the last two kids.

I'm sure I'll break down and buy some new things, but maybe this will help all you 2nd+ time moms-to-be when trying to find something new and "you" to wear!

This was the first shirt I re-did. It was one of those shirts that I would never really wear out in public because even at 9 months, it's still a little slouchy and baggy. I figured, it could survive a change, since if I'm not going out in public, I have quite a nice variety of baggy t-shirts to wear.

The first thing I did was I chopped off the sleeves.

The second thing I did, was I cut up both sides of the shirt on the side hem, up through the sleeve. I measured and took it in as needed, then I used some of the excess fabric for a "binding" of sorts for the sleeves.

Then I laid out my two pieces of extra arm material (though I only used less than one whole arm for this part), and I cut it in a square spiral, starting with the outside so that when I got to the middle I had one long piece of fabric about 1/2 inch thick. (See THIS tutorial for a better explanation on the cutting, follow the link) Put the strip aside, and hang onto it for later.

I then taped the shirt down the front in strips. I actually had to do it as I went, because the tape was too thick, but if you're using regular width tape, you can just put all the strips on at the same time. I started above the V, and taped off 1 1/4 inch strips until I met the bottom of the shirt. 

I then mixed up acryllic paint (for your reference, I mixed 1 part white to 1/2 part gold and 1/2 part silver) and painted between my taped off lines to create the stripes. I did it lightly and roughly to look like that beaten/worn look, with the ends fading out. Acryllic paint is a great subtitute to screening because it's super permanent, and has a very similar texture to a regular screened shirt. Iron-ons are good, but they tend to peel off eventually.

Here's where you'll need your long strip that you cut from the arm piece. I really had no rhyme or reason sewing this to the shirt, just basically whatever direction it laid, I sewed it into little loops and crosses, until it looked like this.

P.S. This is not my real belly, I was only 16 weeks when taking this picture, but wanted to show what it would realistically look like.

***Linking this up at Today's Creative Blog---Get Your Craft On***