Crop Style

This is a crop opening, which seems to be all the rage with Sears and Penneys. Basically, you have two shirt fronts. The side closest to your body (the underlay) has slits for you to reach your bra and feed your baby. The side that the world sees (the overlay) looks like a short t-shirt, usually with buttons at the sideseam. Personally, I detest the buttons and gave them up a couple of years ago, but we're all different, so whatever floats your boat is fine. Here are a couple of pictures:


You can see that the velvet overlay is much longer than the pink t-shirt. The velvet is also sewn together at the sideseams, while the pink shirt is still waiting for those dumb buttons a year after I started wearing it. And yes, the longer overlay is much more flattering than a horizontal line directly across the giant bustline. Live and learn. :)

Designing your crop overlay

Decide where you want your crop overlay. It needs to be somewhere between the bust point and the waistline. Using a yardstick or something to help you draw a straight line, draw a line across your pattern for your crop overlay. Remember that it's going to need a hem, so add an extra inch for the hem. I like my overlays to have the same hem allowance as the underlay, so check your pattern instructions if this matters to you.



Good job! Now to design the underlay.

Step One: Pick your pattern

Need to sew some breastfeeding clothing? Here's how to make a variety of styles using one t-shirt pattern.

First you'll need to start with a pattern that fits you. If you don't have a pattern that fits yet, measure yourself and measure some of your existing shirts and dresses to see how much ease you like in your clothes. Now you can search for a pattern that will fit the way you want it to fit. Some pattern manufacturers include the finished measurements at the bust and hips on the back of the pattern envelope. Others include it on the pattern instruction sheet. Some brands are roomier than others, so it pays to find this information. If you're frustrated with regular patterns, I highly recommend Wild Ginger's pattern drafting software. Their Click & Sew line is inexpensive at around $20.00 for a few different styles and you get a pattern drafted for your body. My bust is huge and fitting has always been difficult for me, so this is the route I go.

So let's assume you have your t-shirt pattern. Now to make it nursing accessible:

You need to mark your bust point on the pattern (You may want to trace a copy of your original pattern because we are going to draw lines all over it. If your pattern was from a 99-cent sale, you may not care.). I did this using the highly technical method of holding the pattern up to my body and lining up the center front with my center front. Put a little X or something on the bust point. Great! Your pattern should look something like this:

Now that your bust point is on the pattern piece, you can design your opening. Choose from crop, vertical or a mock twinset style.

Blast from the past!

I've decided to repost my old tutorials for sewing your own nursing tops or dresses. I had them up on an Earthlink site for several years, but they stopped providing broadband service to my area, so they've been languishing on my hard drive.