DIY Maternity: Mother to Be Inspiration

We have another amazing guest poster today for the Maternity "trimester" of Mother to Be, Being, Been!  If you've been following the prize sponsors, Megan Nielsen of DIY Maternity is offering her MN1006 Ruched Maternity T-shirt pattern to the winner of the Mother to Be - Maternity winner.

Before we head into today's inspiration post - here's where you'll be posting your fabulous entries - Mother to Be Flickr Group.  If you have any trouble getting your project uploaded, please feel free to send your photo and description to me at deshazer(dot)jennifer(at)gmail(dot)com.

Megan Nielsen of DIY Maternity:

Hi there!  My name is Megan Nielsen, I’m a designer and a mom, and I run a blog called DIY Maternity – a site dedicated to nursing and maternity tutorials.  Jenn has asked me to chat to you about where I get my maternity wear inspirations from!

To be honest, retail maternity clothing can be such a drag!  I actually find it upsetting to shop for maternity clothing, since the designs are often frumpy, unflattering and don’t fit a pregnant form properly - not to mention how overpriced they often are.  Which is why I prefer to design my own maternity wear.

Sometimes my ideas come from pure inspiration, but sometimes you may have a creative blank and a little bit of window shopping can help!!

These are some popular Maternity wear sites that you might garner some inspiration from when making your own maternity wear:

• Motherhood Maternity
• Gap Maternity
• Old Navy Maternity
• Isabella Oliver
• Forever 21 Maternity
• Japanese Weekend

But to be honest, I find most of the designs from these stores pretty uninspiring.  I prefer to look at sites that sell normal clothing, and browse around for things that could work as maternity wear – and then try and copy them!  My favourite way of creating maternity wear is to repurpose something old, as that generally costs you nothing!!  Here are some of my current favourites that you will more than likely see some DIY Maternity tutorials popping up for in the future!

Anthropologie - Witchery - Modcloth

ASOS - Jcrew - Modcloth

When I saw the first top I realised that I could take one of my husband's shirts and come up with something pretty similar!  Same with the second top - I think it could be copied pretty well by making some small changes to an existing men's shirt. The Modcloth top looks like it could be easily made out of a few rectangles of fabric.  With the ASOS midi skirt, the waistband is elastic, which not only makes it very easy to sew - but also means you can wear it over your baby bump when you're pregnant (super cute) and then on your waist after, win win!!  The Jcrew dress really excites me - because I think with an empire waist instead of natural waist, it could be made out of a long tube of jersey knit and some elastic, how awesome is that?

The last place I like to look is my favourite fashion blogs - especially those of pregnant women. I like to browse their archives and see if there's anything i could copy...

Dear Baby blog - Jen Loves Kev - Bleubird Vintage

Good luck everyone!! If you get stuck on idea, come on over to DIY Maternity and have a look around, or check out my Maternity and Nursing sewing patterns. Can't wait to see what wonderful things you create for the contest!

Thanks so much for the peek into your creative process.  Please go wander around DIY Maternity - It's on my daily reading list and it's so much fun to see the great designs and get to know some creative Mommas!