Hospital Nursing Gown with Matching Little Girls' Dresses and Review

I have just under three weeks left until I deliver my precious little girl via c-section. She will be our third daughter, fourth tubal-reversal baby, and my seventh child!

(Here I am with my six amazing kids who treated me to ice cream on Mother's Day this year. I am about 3 months along here.)

I can hardly believe the baby will be here and that this is all even real some days! I wanted to share my latest project I finished, my very own hospital nursing gown, I made myself!

I was looking on Pinterest and found this great post about making your own hospital nursing gown from The Crafty Cupboard.

I was really excited to attempt to make this hospital nursing gown as I wanted something to look forward  to as I never look forward to having c-sections. After all  this will be my seventh c-section and also my ninth major abdominal surgery.

Disclaimer: I haven't actually sewed anything in YEARS, (except for minor clothing repairs). I haven't tackled a major sewing project like this since before I had kids about 17 years ago.


I pre-washed and dried all my fabric before beginning. I then printed out the hospital gown pattern pieces on my printer.

 I followed the suggestions of a 36 inch length as I am not very tall and that turned out to be a nice length for me. I tapered my cutting to a nice A-line shape as suggested to accommodate my large tummy.

I followed the rest of the blog instructions fairly easily, creating a lovely nursing gown that doesn't fall off my shoulders thanks to snaps in the front and at each side. You can see a better a view of the front here.

I had a little trouble learning how to use the lightweight interfacing around the neckline, but it was definitely worth the effort as it makes for such a nice crisp neckline to attach snaps to. I accidentally ended up sewing my neckline completely together instead of just ironing it out as directed. The directions said to top stitch and I thought it meant to stitch it closed. This made it more difficult to sew the neckline onto the dress so I added an extra step and  sewed purple binding ribbon to the inside of my dress in order to attach the dress to the neckline. It ended up coming out just as nice. I added purple binding ribbon to the sleeves that match the ribbon around my tummy. I think it came out rather nice! Overall, I think the tutorial from The Crafty Cupboard was very thorough and I would definitely attempt to make this dress again.

The total dress cost probably less than $30 including 3 yards of material, purple thread, purple binding ribbon, and velcro, and snaps.

Now for the matching little girls' dresses!

My mother bought me a Simplicity New Look pattern at Wal-mart to make the girls' dresses in size 4 and 6, (along with all the material, it was a very nice birthday present for sure)! Thanks again, MOM!

I just followed the instructions and they were fairly easy to put together. The gathering at the waist was a little tricky but by the time I got to the second dress I got the hang of it. Since I took this picture above I have sewed some little purple bows onto the necklines and added purple ribbons at the waistline to match my gown.

For the infant gown I was inspired by another Pinterest post by Sweet Haute. Lazy Girl Designs has another hospital nursing gown but it didn't have the detachable nursing neckline like I wanted so I ended up going with The Crafty Cupboard's design. But what I DID like about this post was the cute matching infant gown. I basically made a small dress and sewed an elastic into the bottom of it and then sewed it to an infant onesie. I already had a pretty sweater and hat saved from my daughter so I thought it matched perfectly the purple fabric I chose for my dress!

I have two more dresses to make for the girls but I am already looking around at what I can sew next! Well, maybe after the baby comes I hopefully can pick up my sewing again soon. It is such a wonderful way to spend an afternoon! What sewing projects are you working on? 

Why I Like To Wear Skirts and Some Thoughts on Modesty

Here I am in my lovely new skirt, compliments of my Mom.
This was taken back in May.
I've lost about 18 lbs of pregnancy weight here.
The skirt is light weight and a fun color. My son thought I should start doing a Hawaiian dance when he saw me wearing it!

Whenever my mom is out and about she searches and often finds the most lovely skirts for me! I love to wear skirts now. They have been the perfect transition during and after my pregnancy. Because I have been breast feeding for nearly five years straight I also wear shirts that I can easily breastfeed in.

With a houseful of boys I also have been becoming increasingly more aware of how I dress around my teenage sons. Along with the fact I have two little girls watching every move I make. My girls love to wear dresses too!

We put on our dresses and head off to run errands. Almost every outing lends a wonderful compliment and a question as to why we're all dressed up! No reason, we enjoy being feminine! We are girls so we want to dress like girls! My husband loves it when my girls and I are all wearing our dresses!

In the summer months, skirts and dresses are the only way to dress!

So lest you think we are of some strange religious homeschooling order where I am forced to wear skirts by my church or my husband, I wear skirts because I like them! I don't feel fat in them, I can move about rather easily in a skirt, and I'll tell you a little secret....

The number one reason I found to where a skirt....

I respect myself! 

(It also can bring out the chivalry in old men. Sometimes when they see me approaching a door wearing a skirt, they will stop to open it for me. If you ever wanted to try this as an experiment for all of you who don't wear skirts, I dare you! It's quite delightful to see a man take a few extra quick steps to grab a door for you! Now this is not done in disrespect to my husband or with total disregard for my marriage, this is about RESPECT.)

Take a listen to this video below, it explains what I'm talking about.

(Here is a little background on it.)

He begins with a recent study done by Princeton of what happens to men's brains while viewing women with little clothing on. The study done is very revealing (pun intended) that women who dress modestly allow men to see them for more of who they are and not just for their bodies. Something in a man's brain actually turns off when he sees a woman wearing little clothing. Take a listen, it's less than four minutes long but definitely worth viewing.

 

When practical, wear pants. As often as I can, I wear a skirt!

Moving into the colder Fall and Winter months, I've lost more of my "baby" weight and can fit back into my jeans and pants again. You can read about my journey here.  Even though I can fit back into my jeans better than ever I still long to wear my skirts. Raising Homemakers has a great blog post on how she wears her skirts year round. Adding long socks and fun leggings are great ideas. I think I will try using some of her techniques!

 

"I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God." 1 Timothy 2:9-10

Just some thoughts to ponder!