pants!

After a few depressing excursions to buy maternity pants, I decided to try my hand at a DIY version.  Thanks to Modest Maven's Converted Maternity Pants Tutorial, I am now the proud owner of some stylish, comfortable, LONG ENOUGH maternity corduroy trousers!  I began with some dark mahogany Lands' End slim leg cords.  I love them so much that I own several pairs.

[Photo courtesy of landsend.com]

They were my teaching uniform, and thanks to a belly band I bought at Target, I prolonged their use.  The problem was that the belly band made my pockets inaccessible, and it would slip and slide throughout the day.  I constantly needed to hike it up or down--not really a classroom-friendly endeavor.  I needed a permanent solution.  

I went on a pilgrimage to Joann's with PB right before Thanksgiving, where I found the necessary wide elastic and cotton/lycra fabric.  Bonus: it's ribbed just like the corduroy!  Then out came the seam ripper and off came the waistband.  Because I only have a basic sewing machine, I had to read up on how to sew knits without a serger.  The zigzag stitch seemed to do just fine.  Plus, the tutorial mentions how to reinforce the new stretchy waistband if you want it to be extra strong.

Now to do it all over again with a pair of my french walnut boot cut corduroys...