Friday, March 20, 2009

Knock It Off!

*I keep editing this, because I keep forgetting things. Forgive me if you are using a reader!*




I actually look pregnant, believe it or not. It's not baby, or anything yet, of course - it's all fun stuff, like huge amounts of gas, and water (I'm Jupiter! I'm Neptune! I'm Jupiter! I'm Neptune!)

Anyway, my two favorite pair of pants do not fit me comfortably anymore unless I unbutton them. So, I made a knockoff maternity gadget, that will remain nameless (basically, it's a "Second letter of the alphabet" Band). Too effing easy to make to spend $20+ on one! Sheesh! This band hooks around the front belt loops of pants with snaps, and stretches comfortably to hide the unbuttons and resulting belly gap. Pretty nifty, imo. I might have to make them for my family for Thanksgiving Day use ;)

It's dark, and I am really tired, so I don't have a picture of the K Band in use, but I can assure you, it is in use right now. Every night, I lie on the sofa with my feet up, and my pants unbuttoned, and honestly, it just makes me feel fat. This is much better =]

Here is my little drawing, so that you can visualize my awesome new K Band. Except that mine is made of black cotton/lycra, with black snaps. The short ends are not turned & topstitched or anything; I just serged across them with black thread (they are hidden when they are looped around the beltloops, anyway. Oh, and the other half of the snaps is hidden in the diagram by the folded over ends. There are four complete sets of snaps on this.



I cut a rectangle 5in by [how long the fabric was when I stretched it comfortably from beltloop to beltloop over my unbuttoned pants]. I ironed the curly edges of the fabric flat, ironed a small strip of lightweight interfacing to each end (about 5in x 1in), folded the piece in half long-ways, and stitched up the long open edge. Back to the ironing board, I worked the piece so that the seam was centered in what became the back of the band, and ironed it flat, making sure not to slide my iron around so that I didn't stretch out the fabric much. Serged up the short ends, and applied snaps to the ends. I found that keeping the outer snaps closer to the corners kept the corners from poking out, or getting weird shaping from edges curling, etc.

I used lightweight iron-on interfacing on the very ends of the band, so that the snaps wouldn't rip through the fabric, but the center portion of the band would still remain stretchy. I wish there was stretchy interfacing...

I have some more of this type of fabric, and will probably make a couple more of these. But first, I need a new cap die for my snap press. After surviving countless trips across the country and back, little kids, big kids, men that are fascinated by a sewing "tool", this one die has finally wandered off.

If my mom is reading this: I used some of the black stretchy fabric you sent me ages ago to use on the edges of gloves...it boggles my mind how I managed to hang onto so much of my stash throughout these past 5 years! I think I have a gift...or a problem ;)

2 comments:

Fiber Babble said...

Clever. Very clever. Will look forward to pictures... <3

Send your mother an email.

Dammit.

UK lass in US said...

I'm impressed. I wish I had seen something like that before I was pregnant. I used to just use an elastic band looped around the button and through the button hole.