DIY Nursing Dress: Super Comfy Shirred Dress Free Pattern

In this post, I’m sharing how to draft a shirred dress pattern for free and use it to sew your own nursing dress for maternity purposes. 

Shirred tops and dresses have become increasingly popular, especially for nursing purposes, like the iconic nap dress from the Hill House. These garments are elastic but not tight, providing a comfortable fit that hugs your body during pregnancy and seamlessly transitions to nursing and postpartum wear by allowing easy access for breastfeeding.

This maternity dress I designed is inspired by the Doen shirred maxi dress, because I want this nursing dress to have  a long skirt and long sleeves, suited to the region I live in and the season I’d be postpartum.

After postpartum, this dress can easily transition into an everyday type of dress. I may also add a drawstring in the future right around the waist.

Materials:

• Lightweight, flowy fabric, such as cotton voile, rayon, or or light to medium weight woven fabrics
• Elastic sewing thread, also known as shirring elastic
• 1/4 inch elastic band
• Water erasable pen
• Matching thread

Drafting Your Free Nursing Dress Pattern:

To begin, let’s create your own shirred dress pattern for free. Here’s the formula:

Take the following measurements:

• Bust circumference (wrap tape measure around the fullest part of your bust)
• Armhole circumference (wrap tape measure under and around your arm)
• Desired dress length (measure from neckline to hem)
• Desired sleeve length (measure from where you want the shoulder strap to sit to the sleeve cuff)

The desired length is personal, but for reference, I’m 5’3″ and chose a dress length of 45″ and sleeve length of 22″.

DIY Nursing Dress for Pregnancy and Breastfeeding Step-by-Step Tutorial

Now you got your maternity nursing dress sewing pattern ready, let’s start making it.

Step 1. Cut Fabric

Cut out the fabric pieces according to your measurements, including a front and back dress (bodice and skirt), two sleeves, and optional 4 pocket pieces. 

You can find many free pocket patterns online such as this from Sew DIY and this from Rosery Apparel.

Then cut out the triangle pieces that measure 5″x4″ for the two dress and two sleeve pieces.

Step 2. Add pocket (optional)

If you choose the pocket version, add pockets by laying the pocket pieces 11″ below the side seams, right side facing. Pin, sew, and finish the seams for all four pockets. 

Then open the pockets and topstitch them around 1/8″ from the seam.

Step 3. Sew the Bodice

Place the front dress piece onto the back dress piece(they may look exactly the same, like mine), right sides together. Pin and sew the side seam along the pockets’ outer edge. Finish the seam with a zigzag or serger.

Step 4. Prepare for Shirring:

Wind the elastic thread onto the bobbin of your sewing machine. When winding the bobbin, don’t stretch the elastic thread. Wind it in its relaxed state without being too loose. 

Install the button and adjust your sewing machine setting, keep in mind this will depend on your machine default tensions. So I recommend doing some test swatches first. 

I did 2 rounds of tests. Here’s what I’ve settled for my Singer 7258 machine:

• Stitch length: 4.5mm (default 2.5mm)
• Tension: +2 (default 0)

Step 5. Shirr the Bodice:

Before shirring, I recommend finishing the top edge as it is a lot easier to finish now before the shirring. You can do so by folding it twice at 1/4″ and topstitching to secure. 

Now let’s get started with shirring.

Starting at the top of the bodice, sew rows of parallel stitches about 3/8 inch apart, which is the distance between the sewing needle and the edge of the sewing foot.

If you want to do a different width, you can move your needle left to right. I do find using the foot edge as the general guide to sew shirring lines is a lot quicker.

Continue sewing rows of shirring until you’ve covered the desired bodice length – for me it is 8” measuring from the top of the bodice.

How to finish the shirring elastic at each row

Because the bodice is a tube, once I finish each row, I would just pull the threads out a bit and jump right to the next row. The elastic shirring thread will be continuous without stretching too much, while leaving= enough top stitch thread  that I can use to tight a knot off later. 

Alternatively you can backstitch at the beginning and end of each row to secure the elastic thread, and start a new row fresh.

Step 6. Sew the sleeves

Fold each sleeve piece in half, right sides together, and sew the side seam. Then finish the seam with zigzag or serger.

Now add elastic to the sleeve edge so it can fit snugly on your shoulder. Fold the sleeve top edge at ¼”, then at 3/8”, to the wrong side, and stitch in place close to the fold. Now we have a channel to thread elastic in! The channel width will depend on the width of the elastic you use.

Thread 1/4” elastic through, secure both ends with a pin or wonder clip. Bring it to the sewing machine and stitch the elastic in place by running straight stitch back and forth.

Later I decided that instead of a puffy sleeve, I’d like to shirr the lower half of the sleeve for a look that is similar to my inspiration Doen shirred maxi dress. So I draw a line 4” from the seam line on the sleeve hem and connect it to the underarm corner. Then I trimmed the excess fabric and re-finished the seam.

After that, it is time to finish the sleeve hem. Fold the lower towards the wrong side of fabric twice at 1/4”  and finish the hem with straight stitch.

Then attach the sleeves to the bodice, matching the underarm seams. Sew and finish the seam.

This is a good time to try on the dress, and make adjustments if needed, such taking in the side seam if it is too loose, adjust the shoulder strap tightness, adjust skirt or sleeve length, etc.

Step 7. Shirr the Sleeves:

For the sleeve, I shirred the bottom half of the sleeve with the same shirring process as the bodice, but with a different pattern.

I started with shirring 2 rows with 3/8” distance, then leave an 1” gap before the 2 rows with 3/8” distance, and repeat. Once I got to the sleeve cuff, I shirred a few rows until I left 1”for the ruffled cuff. 

Because I’m going with an uneven pattern, I found using a water erasable pen to mark all the shirring rows beforehand to be super useful. Afterwards I just spray some water on it and the mark disappear beautifully.

Step 8. Finish the Dress:

Now the dress is really coming together. There are two more steps to finish the nursing dress nicely.

First, Hem the bottom edge of the dress to the desired length. After trying it on, I trimmed off 1” and folded in ½”, then 1” in for a double fold hem then stitched in place.

Another step I highly recommend is to steam the shirring. This will shrink the elastic back as they can be a bit stretched during the shirring process. Additionally, the steam helps set the shirring nicely. Instead of using an iron, I just grabbed my garment steamer

Here’s what it looks like wearing it! I was 8 month pregnant in those photos, for your reference.

DIY Nursing Dress Customization Ideas:

This free maternity/nursing dress pattern is super easy to customize, here are some ideas:

1. Skirt Length: You can experiment with different skirt lengths to suit your style local temperature. You can have the skirt portion stops right the above the knees, or mid calf for a more summary look.
2. Sleeve: Try playing around with sleeve lengths and style. You can choose short puffy sleeves for warmer without any shirring on the sleeves. Or you can extend the sleeves for extra coverage on your arm, and close it with elastic just without any ruffles on the cuff.
3. Shirring Patterns: You can get really creative with shirring patterns on the bodice. For example, you can copy the same shirring pattern on the sleeves to your bodice portion. Or create your own custom spacing. There are tons of inspirations from fashion brands and Pinterest.
4. Additional Details: This shirred nursing dress pattern is like a blank canvas, so you can totally add embellishments such as lace trims, buttons, drawstrings, bows to customize the dress even more.

DIY Nursing Dress for Maternity and Breastfeeding Summary

In this DIY nursing dress sewing tutorial, we’ve explored together on how to make your very own dress that is both comfortable and pretty, whether you are currently pregnant or in the nursing phase of your life.

What I love about this project is that by following the simple pattern drafting formula, we can all create our own free pattern that fits our body perfectly. Plus, if you are very new to pattern drafting, this can give you a confidence boost to start drafting your own sewing pattern.

I hope you enjoy reading this project, and let me know what you think in the comments.

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