Maternity Shirt Conversion Tutorial from Existing Paern By Christine Hansen aka Covered By Design 5/4/10 Feel free to share this tutorial with others but please link back to my blog so I an recieve some credit for this tutorial. Thanks! hp://www.coveredbydesign.com/2010/05/maternity-shirt-conversion-tutorial.html Materials Needed: 1. Tracing Paper, wrapping paper,newspaper or painters plastic 2. Existing non maternity knit t-shirt paern,front paern piece, traced (if needed) and cut out 3. Marker or pencil for tracing 4. Ruler or measuring tape Steps: 1. Lay your tracing paper, I used wrapping paper, on your cuing /tracing surface. A kitchen table or the floor also works great. 2. Lay the front paern piece on top of the wrapping paper. If it is not already designed to cut on the fold then you need to fold the paern in half. 3. Make sure you have plenty of extra tracing material to the boom and outside edge of the fold to draw the new paern. 4. Trace the entire paern onto the paper. Mark the boom point of the arm hole with an X, it is your pivot point. If you desire to add a lile more length to your paern do it to the existing paern tracing now. 5. Holding the paern piece on the X at the boom of the armhole, pivot the paern piece. You are making belly room here. The boom fold corner should be about 6” away from the fold edge now. You can add more than 6“ if you think you will need more, but 6” is adequate. 6. Make sure that your paern is still on the x, so you don’t end up with a funky sleeve opening. 7. Using your ruler or a straight edge place it on the boom of the original paern and place an X where this will intersect the new side paern line. 8. Now measure from that X you just made to the corner of the existing paern. For mine it was about 1”. This measurement can now be added as bust ease which I will explain a bit later or can be added to your existing back paern piece’s boom edge. 9.Trace down the side of the existing paern to the X you just made, this is your new paern side. 10. To add bust ease which some may need along with growing tummy you can now take that measurement from step 8 and add it 2 inches down from the lower arm hole point along the side. The boom mark of my one inch measurement will be 3 inches from the lower arm hole point. 11. To add the bust ease, if desired, just stitch a long stitch just within the seam allowance and gather between the 1” marks (or whatever your marks are) before sewing the side seams together. 12. Now for the new boom paern line. You will be tracing from the X in step 7 to the fold edge in the paern. My line is roughly 1-1.5” from the existing paern piece and curves around nicely to the fold edge. There are no measurements for this part, just a nice curve that stays fairly even. 13. Make sure you have added all the paern markings to the new paern. 14. Sew it up according to your paerns directions. 15. If you chose not to add bust ease, make sure to add you measurement from step 8, to the length of your back paern piece. NOTE: Pin Side seams together before sewing! Occasionally the boom edges of the front and back paern pieces don’t quite line up, so make sure to trim any excess fabric off the boom before sewing.