Cool girl maternity skinny pants

While the rest of the cool girls are making pants, I didn't want to be left out!!  But our source of all knowledge doesn't really talk about how to make maternity pants, so I was on my own for this one.  I do want a few new maternity pants, and I've been wanting to jump on the skinny pants bandwagon.  (As an aside, I think maternity is the perfect time to try out all those styles and fads that you are a little afraid of.  When else do you have a perfectly reasonable excuse for buying a new wardrobe that you are only going to wear for a couple of months??)  Here is my polyvore inspiration

And these are the AG Jeans from Pea in a Pod I was attempting to copy.  I wasn't willing to pop down the 225 bucks for jeans I'll only wear until December...

And so....  my version

I think I got pretty close!!  These are drafted with the help of Design it Yourself Clothes, but with my own twist to make them maternity.  I sewed them out of a mystery stretch cord that I found in my stash.  The wale is so small, it actually has an almost velvety appearance.  Kinda cool, actually.  I wonder where it came from?  Having never drafted my own pants before, I pretty much stuck to the instructions in the book, but used three different measurements for the rise, in order to accommodate my bump.

Here is the pattern as I drafted it.  Since these are skinny pants and I used a very stretchy fabric, I did not incorporate any ease in the pattern.  You can also see how CF (at the right) dips low to give me belly room, while CB (left) comes up quite high to help the pants stay up on my backside.  I also gave myself some extra length below the knee to give the pants that scrunch effect in my inspiration pants.  I used my maternity panel method that I talked about in my last post.  Initially, the pants had the same jodphur effect that Amanda got with her first draft.

I shaved off quite a bit from the side seams and got a much better fit.  I also had to nip in the back waist a bit to get a snug fit that wouldn't ride down.  How did that happen when I didn't add any ease to the pattern??  
Even after my adjustments, I still have a bit of a saggy bottom.

I lightened the picture so that you could see all the wrinkles.  It doesn't look this bad in real life!

Overall, I am happy with the end result.  I think it has the feel of my inspiration piece and they are quite comfortable to wear.  I think I may be through drafting patterns, though.  I'm not a particularly atypical size or shape and I generally can find the styles and fit I need in commercial patterns.  I have learned a lot about how patterns go together, so I'm really glad that I've taken this journey.

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On a personal note, we had our ultrasound yesterday.  It looks like I will be sewing that sailor suit!  We are having a BOY!  All of his parts are accounted for and in the appropriate locations as well.  It's always a relief to me to be able to see the everything is fine.  Whew!  Now I've got to get sewing!