Today's post is a guest blog written by my mother, who graciously made a few maternity garments for me early in my pregnancy when I didn't have the energy to sew.

When our daughter announced that we would become grandparents for the first time my heart leapt for joy. I was ready to make A.L.L. the things for the baby, but decided I should consult the parents before I went wild.  Marissa suggested a few clothing items to round out her maternity wardrobe would be especially helpful. She selected the Megan Nielsen pattern Cara and ordered fabric from So Sew English. I was delighted when I received that package. The fabric was a rich red Modal with a wonderful drape. I printed out the pattern and got right to work. It is a bit tricky trying to sew for someone so many miles away but I relied on fitting the pattern to myself and sending selfies, and video chats with Marissa for "sewing consultations". 

To extend the top pattern to dress length I compared it to a ready-to-wear dress in a length I liked. The shirt pattern had already made adjustments for a pregnant tummy and hips so I simply extended the length, with a slight flare to allow for walking.

Isn't it great that we are so close in height too? I scoured the comments on the Megan Nielsen blog and gleaned lots of tips and suggestions that I found helpful. I noticed how often women suggested that adding elastic to the ruching was critical, and created a nicer end product. I think this suggestion was essential to creating the nicest finished product when using such a drapey fabric. 

In the end I adjusted the sleeve width, bringing it in a full inch. I  also made a few adjustments to the shoulder area, bringing it in one inch to bring the shoulder cap up and taking 1/2" off the top of each shoulder seam, lifting the entire garment up and shortening the neckline and armscye. I finished the dress with a twin double needle hem. I always use wash away stay tape on knits hems and found that step especially important with this lightweight fabric.

Actual sewing time was probably about an hour, but I spent a couple more hours preparing the fabric, adjusting the sizing, "tissue fitting" and video chatting. I wanted  this to be the perfect feel good to wear maternity wardrobe staple. As soon as I completed my sewing I boxed it up, sealed it with a kiss and ran to the post office. I was so happy to see Marissa wearing the dress in a recent photo.

Before making this version of the Pacific Pullover I hadn't worked with pique. Pique, I learned, is a knit that is typically used to make polo shirts. Although for a knit, it has hardly any stretch and I needed to make a few adjustments to the pattern for this garment to work. You can read all about it here on the new Minerva site! And to purchase your own pique you can use my affiliate link here.

This fabric was gifted to me in return for a blog post and this post contains affiliate links. But rest assured I would definitely make this version of the Pacific Pullover again! Thank you for your support.

This should have been a quick and easy make, but I was stumped on how exactly I was supposed to turn up 5/8" for the front, circular hem portion. After a video call with my mother and a few quick internet searches I found that Brittany made a "Sew With Me" video for this top and she (among others) ran into the same issue. I'm glad I wasn't alone! I needed to clip further than I initially thought I should and took a very scant hem over the curved portion and I was over the difficulties. I used a mixture of zigzag stitches, on the internal seams and seams that would need to stretch, and small straight stitches, on the external hem seams, which won't need to stretch due to the design.

The pattern called for set-in sleeves but, since this is a knit pattern I decided to sew my sleeves in flat making that portion of the pattern a bit easier to assemble. In all, this pattern took four or five hours for me to cut out and sew together. And maybe he's being a bit over the top, but my husband thinks it looks like it could sell for over $100 in a department store. That makes this a pattern worth keeping and making again!