another new nursing dress design

… the last time I stayed with Mum and Dad; I helped Mum to clean out her fabric stash; AGAIN.  Mum now has small and beautifully curated collection of perfectly gorgeous fabrics in her possession, and I have… a much bigger pile of the less beautiful rejects, haha.  I know, I definitely did not need this! but *shrug*  I’m going to have to get a LOT better at throwing out fabric too, I think!

Anyway, I haven’t had the chance to go through it properly yet, but I did pluck out this one recently as something that would suit Cassie.  It’s a soft, very stretchy stuff, very pretty with a raspberry pink floral print… and Mum had partially made a sort of dress out of it already.  Thinking about it a bit, I realised I could make a really nice little nursing friendly dress for Cassie.

 Our Yallingup pattern wouldn’t do, because that really only suits a non-stretch woven fabric.  The previous, jersey maternity/nursingdress I had designed and twice made for Cassie was a possibility, but Cassie had mentioned how the boob tube under-top kind of snapped back up while she’s trying to feed the baby, which is annoying and not terribly user-friendly.  Anyway, I’ve dreamt up this design…

this is a sort of cowl-neck tank top, on a simple dress that is basically the same skirt as the one I’d previously designed for her.  The shoulder straps of the tank top aren’t joined to each other; the back one is stitched to the shoulder seam of the over top, and the front one snaps on to it; so all she has to do is reach up under the loose cropped top and unsnap the front strap.

Having a cowl neckline allows each front to come down comfortably without being too tight.  In short, it works really well!  I’m seriously thinking of making this a new pattern for our company!

I asked Cassie to lift up the front to show the cowl neck…  😀