Chic? Hospital Gowns

A good friend of mine who is a little eccentric and very stylish is having a baby soon. Regular hospital gowns will not do for her! She asked me to make her 2 gowns to wear during her hospital stay. She found a fairly easy pattern online at Lazy Girl Designs. You just print out the pattern and tape it together. Since it looked easy enough, and since I only sew easy, I agreed to make them for her.

I followed the pattern fairly closely for the first one. I didn't do a pocket (why would you want a breast pocket on pjs?),and I replaced the buttons and ties with snaps. The directions are clear, but I wanted more detail. They tell you to serge edges and hem things, but they don't specify how much. Sooo, just in case you have a slightly eccentric stylish friend that needs a hospital gown, here are a couple things I learned about gowns.

In the pattern, the shoulders are both fastened with velcro. The pattern calls for iron on interfacing to reinforce the fabric. On my second version, I made fabric facing instead. It looks so much nicer and more finished than the interfacing. I used the pattern to cut the exact length and angles of the facing and cut it about 2" wide.  Apply it the usual way you would do facing, apply the velcro to the facing, turn it under as you see here then sew down the edges of the facing.

I also decided to use facing on the neck instead of turning it under as the pattern suggested. I used the same method as above to cut the facing.

The pattern calls for buttons and button holes on each side of the neck. My client preferred snaps, so that is what I did. She also opted for snaps in the back rather than ties.

I didn't have a serger, so I just zig zagged the raw edges and put about a 1/2" hem in the garment.


Here's the almost finished second edition. The first has already been delivered.

Would you want a personal hospital gown? The fabric cost almost $30 alone. My friend said she would pay me, but what on earth would I charge? Since I am SLOW,  each one took me 4 or 5 hours. Would you charge an hourly rate or a per item rate? I think I will opt not to charge anything, but those of you that sew for hire, how do you decide what you will charge?

(PS. A shout out to our reader Tracy who always has a kind word for us! Thank you so much for your comments. They really mean a lot!)