DIY Thursday: Nursing Cover

Since we have a little girl on the way in December (I'm not as creative at announcing these things as Whitney is so I didn't do a cute announcement) I needed to replenish my stock of baby essentials.  One of these was  a nursing cover.  For some reason, once I was done nursing my little boy, I got rid of my nursing covers....even knowing that I still wanted at least one more kid.  I did this with a lot of things....I think it was my subconscious planning ahead so I would have a good excuse to buy more baby stuff.  Anywho....so one of the things on my list was a nursing cover.  I remember when I had my daughter and then my son, that all the nursing covers seem too short, the baby always kicked it off or it barely covered.  Also, it left my back open for all too see....which wasn't a pretty site because we all know how lovely our figures look after having a baby (and if you are one of the lucky ones that went home from the hospital in your pre-pregnancy clothes, I don't want to hear or I will hunt you down and force feed you Twinkies and ding dongs until you gain 50 pounds! =)  )  As i looked around at covers, they were expensive....$30 for a square piece of fabric?!  So I visited the lovely world of pinterest.  I found my solution!!!!  Here is the Original nursing cover tutorial.  I love how she calls it the "Bomb shelter."  It is pretty much a shawl.  It covers the front and back and you can make it as long as you want!!  Yay!!!  No more unsightly back shots!  And it covers enough that you could easily use it while nursing at a restaurant, park, mall, where ever, and not worry abut exposing yourself.  I would highly suggest going to the original sight because she explains it really well, but I will do my best to explain what I did too.  This is an easy project that beginners can make.

I went to my local craft store (Joann's) and found some cute fabric.  The original blog said 1.5 yards but I wanted to make sure mine would really cover, so I got 2 yards.  Of course I used a coupon so I think my total was $5-$6 (much better than $30!!!!)

Once I got my fabric, I pinned a hem around it.  I think I did somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2....I eye balled but if you are really particular, you can use one of those nifty hem measurement thingies

Then sew it.  I used a zig zag stitch.  I knew it would show through on the other side so I wanted a stitch that wouldn't be as noticeable since I don't sew the straightest.

Then I folded it in half, and measured half way to figure out where I wanted the neck hole.   I think I started out with making it around 10 inches wide, and then measured about 1 1/2 inches down. I made it small and then tried it on to see how I liked it, and then expanded it a bit.  If you make an oops and make it too big, you can easily pin and sew the corners so it isn't as wide.  It is very forgiving.  I then hemmed the hole.  Feel free to add decorative ribbon if you want, but I left mine plain since the fabric was busy enough. 

It kinda looked like a football.  If you are crafty or ambitious enough, you could add the plastic to make the collar stick out, but it always gets misshapen with me so I just avoid it. 

This is it laying down, the neck really isn't that wide.  If you really want, you could round the edges, but I wanted it simple as possible and didn't want to worry about that.

I laid it out so you could see.  Pretty much all you have to do with this is cut a hole in the middle of a square piece of fabric.  this is super easy to do!!!

Here is me kneeling down modeling it.  I think it will cover me plenty and cover the baby. =)  I'm sure my instructions aren't the clearest so please visit the link I put above to get much better instructions.  Have fun!  If I can do it, anyone can =)

You can find this awesome post linked up to the following Fantastic Parties: