Pregnant-lady Penelope

April 05, 2022

The maker made the following adjustments to adapt Penelope to work with knit fabric and her pregnant belly:

• Took new measurements with "waist" at the narrowest part of her body, which was several cm higher than normal, up at the ribcage
• Added 15cm to the vertical measurements, then used that length of swim elastic to scrunch the top 30cm or so on the side seams
• Omitted the back vent and trimmed the seam allowance on the straight side of the Back part to make it cut on fold
• Took the width of the darts out of the sides and waistband
• Reduced the ease to 0% (in advanced options) and sewed extra wide seam allowances, an imprecise method of accounting for the stretch of the fabric that ended up working out well
• She printed the pattern with a hem bonus of −10% and later took another ~1.5cm out of each side

She reports that this was very easy to sew without the zipper requirement of woven fabric, and that she is happy with the outcome!