Project #31 - Maternity Top

Last weekend it was hot - stinking hot! Up until then I had found my maternity wardrobe to be lacking , but workable. In the heat however, I realised that I don't have enough skirts and I certainly don't have enough maternity tops or tshirts.

After having such success on the skirt refashion, I thought it was time for a new challenge - Sewing a maternity top using the shirring technique. Here is a picture of the top completed:


A while back I had attempted to shir a piece of material and failed miserably. After winding the shirring elastic onto the bobbin it would unravel when I put it into the machine, which meant that the elastic wasn't tight enough to shir. I tried 'googling' for solutions to this problem, but came up empty handed. It wasn't until I was talking to mum about it that we realised I had been using a generic bobbin and sure enough when I used a legitimate 'Singer' bobbin instead it seemed to work.

First I tried making a top using a tutorial which was quite clearly a dud. They insisted that you didn't need to tie the shirring elastic ends together to secure it and as a result, when I put the top on all of the shirring came undone *sigh*. This meant I spent 4.5 hours unpicking the millions of rows of shirring to start again.

I ended up using a great tutorial from Kuky Ideas and added a tie around the waist as I thought it would look cute (kind of like my baby bump was wrapped up like a parcel!).

All up the top took me around half an hour to make and only cost me about $6 to make. Given the same style of top retails for around $30 at Kmart, I'll have saved myself $24 - yay!. The top is super comfy and perfect to wear over jeans (when it's cooler) or over a skirt. Better yet, I should still be able to wear this top after the baby is born too. Here is a picture of me wearing the top:


The best part about this top, is that I should be able to wear it after the baby is born also!