a maternity dress for the baby shower!

eric's mom and sister threw us a baby shower the 1st weekend of march.  the affair was amazing: delicious homemade food, adorable woodland-themed decorations, great company.  they put a lot of work into planning the event: alice wrote beautiful poems for the invitations and melissa had them printed with the cutest animals!  EEEEE!  it seemed only appropriate that I make a dress for the event (particularly since i'm a shrimp and store-bought petite xs maternity clothes are EXTREMELY hard to find)!!!

I've never made or owned a wrap dress before, so I knew that a wrap dress, appropriate for baby bumps, was the route to go.  however, since baby bumps create the need for a lot of extra fabric in the front, I needed to find a sewing pattern that either was meant for maternity or had a maternity hack.  (I was hoping for one with a hack so I could reuse the pattern later after the baby was born.). "sew over it," a british indy pattern company had just a wrap dress pattern with a pregos hack, called the "ultimate wrap dress".  a pdf pattern no less, for those of us who prefer instant gratification hehehehe!  for fabric, I used this stretchy spandexy fabric I bought 10 years ago at "g street fabrics," my favorite fabric store from my dc days.  I describe this as "diane von furstenburg on acid" hahahahaha.  it has an amazing drape to it and is so smooth to the touch!

it is certainly bold, to say the least.  the navy diamond pattern was actually the border of the fabric, so I used it (uncut) on both sleeves and to line the neckline.  shirley always teases me for having the brightest clothing, and this dress certainly did not disappoint!

the pattern was hilarious: most folks on the web who have sewn this dress noted that it was very very short, reaching only mid-thigh.  at 5' tall, I figured, "awesome, no need to shorten this dress!" (my usual needed pattern adjustment) for the hack, the pattern had you add 5 inches to the center front, to make room for the baby bump.  so 5 inches I added.  when it came time to try on the dress, eric was frightened.  "uh honey, that looks really big and frumpy on you..."  he was right, the dress came to below my knee caps, NEVER a good spot for a dress to end on me.  sure enough, I ended up taking up the bottom hem by 5 inches, meaning I hacked off the pattern hack AND had to continue taking the 5 inches out of the sides and back of the dress.  this ultimate wrap dress ultimately had to be shortened as well!

here's eric and i reading all the suggestion cards from our guests.  cute pic, isn't it?!?!?  look how well this dress fit me at the shoulders!!!  EEEEE!!!!

I made a belt for the empire waist with the border fabric, which you can't see in the pic above but kinda can in the pic below.  jimmy drove all the way from pittsburgh to ct to celebrate with us!

once all the baby-making is done, I'm going to shorten the front panel once more to make it normal so I can continue to wear the dress.  it's just too cute and wild to not wear again!

the fuzz-feed:   eric caught him napping in the sun!!  so innocent-looking, but don't be fooled!

here he is guarding the parsley plant that eric's dad protected from his evil bunny clutches, hahahahah!

I recently made cauliflower potato soup that was divine!  making it for din tonight too!

I've been making us a batch of muffins every week for snacks at the factory.  here's apple walnut:

and finally, some cinnamon chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.  so good, didn't last long!