mumu to tunic in about 30 minutes

I recently went shopping in Ponca City for maternity clothes and came home very disappointed.  There is absolutely no place to buy maternity clothes except for the second hand stores and pickins are slim!  I found one actual maternity top in my size in all the stores I visited.  I did, however, find some pieces I could repurpose.  I found this great mumu for $1 at My Favorite Things.  It was a great color and the fabric had good weight for fall/winter and i loved the details on the sleeves.

I started by cutting off the gathered skirt piece at the bottom.  I also cut off the elastic hemmed into the sleeves.  I then, by luck, found some matching thread that I had already purchased for some other project, and hemmed the bottom and sleeves.

I then pinned some elastic to the inside to make the waist empire and fitted.  The easiest way to do this is to put the piece on inside out, pin the elastic to the sides and mark with a tailors chalk where you want the elastic to hit, then take it off, stretch the elastic and pin it down in even increments to make sure it gathers evenly.  I then sewed the elastic on with a straight stitch across the top and bottom edges of the elastic, stretching while I sewed.

Voila!  now I have a cute maternity top that took me $1 and about 30 minutes.