DIY Maternity Jeans with tutorial

[AnnaReilly]

Great fitting maternity jeans exist, but I'm not spending $80 on a pair of jeans I'll only wear for 3 more months. (The cheap ones either don't fit right or don't look like jeans.) SO I decided to craft myself up a pair!

I started with a pair of jeans that fit me everywhere except my growing belly, (this happened to be a pair of stretch jeans 2 sizes larger than I normally wear found at the thrift store for $4) and a t-shirt (I could have used a blue shirt to match the denim, but I found a cute print that I liked better for $2.)

First, I put the jeans on and figured out how far up I could comfortably wear the zipper and marked that place.

Then I cut out the zipper and handstitched the fly shut. From the top of the new fly, I sketched a curved line up to just below the belt loops which would become my new waistband. (Please excuse the stretch marks... they come with the territory, you know... and a flash is oh so flattering on them.  )

I sewed along this line with upholstery weight thread and a small stitch length to make sure it would hold.

As you might be able to see in the pic, I removed the small 5th pocket to cut down on bulk.

I tried the jeans on with the new waist seam to check that they fit, and then cut off the excess denim.


I sewed a 6" wide strip of my t-shirt into a loop and then pinned it onto my jeans, right sides together.

(To get the circumference for the t-shirt waist, I pulled the t-shirt around my belly as tight as I could get it and went with that.) Since the t-shirt circumference was smaller than the jeans waist circumference I had to stretch the t-shirt to get it all pinned together. I did most of that stretching on the back side since that side doesn't need to have as much stretch when I wear them. That left lots of stretch in the front part where I need it.

I turned the t-shirt out, and then top-stitched to make it lay flat when worn.


This is what the jeans look like on if I pull the t-shirt waist all the way up...


And if I scrunch it down it...

If I wear an actual maternity shirt it comes down far enough to cover the waist band entirely, but if I wear a shorter (normal) shirt, then it's visible but, with the print, looks more intentional than if I had used a blue shirt. (The color of the shirt is washed out in the pics - it looks better in person.)

Now I have a pair of maternity jeans for $6 and about 30 minutes of sewing, but having jeans that fit me right now is PRICELESS! 

[rhythmgrl]

great job!!!  i think it would've looked to bland-sheepish if you had used a matching color t-shirt; but i'm all about bold contrast and the unexpected.
and now i wanna know what your tat is!

[AnnaReilly]

Thanks! 


The tattoo is a dragon...

[NellyPie]

Very very sweet idea. They look great. Kinda reminds me of yoga pants with the big bands that fold over at the top.  The normal, same color band maternity pants you can buy are SCARY. What you've done is really cute and if I were you i'd wear a shorter top and let the band show like you said. You've got a pretty mamma belly.

[jlcotton]

Wow, you look adorable.
Great job on the pants! Dumpy, expensive maternity pants are not for the denizens of craftster.org.

[gwensmom]

That is just brilliant. 

[thequeenjane]

This is absolutely perfect!  Me and my friend, who is 5 months pregnant, were just talking the other day about maternity pants.  She doesn't want to shell out mega bucks for ugly pants, so I told her I would try to figure out how to make some.  I was looking at the store, but they are all so horrible that I didn't want to make any of them!  This is just great!  I can't wait to tell her....she is going to be so psyched!  Thank you!

[thixle]

I just did a pair of pants kinda like that a couple of weeks ago! (It was my experiment piece, though, so no one gets to see them... so very crappy.)  BUT, I did take the same idea and made a "bikini" out of shorts... damn, I wish my camera/scanner/computer were all compatible. I'll post a pic here very, very soon.

Anna-- I instantly recognized your tat from like, a year ago, on here...  How far along are you? I'm almost 20 weeks and busily reconstructing clothes to keep up with the belly, lol.  My "mother-in-law" just gave me a huge box of old t-shirts to play with.  I feel like a kid in a candy store!

ps-- I LOVE YOUR FABRIC!

[DIYdani]

That's so cute! Good Job and congrats on the baby 

[AnnaReilly]

Thanks, everyone!

Congratulations, Thixle! I'm almost 25 weeks and I feel your pain... the clothing options for a growing belly are few and far between. (To make my matters worse, I have a bunch of maternity clothes from when I had my other daughter 2.5 years ago but they don't fit because I haven't gained as much weight this time.) Neccesity is the mother of invention though! The upside is that my husband would rather I go hide away in my craft room for hours than go spend $ on brand new clothes, so I get more time for my hobbies.