Heirloom Nightgowns

Nightgown and blanket, which was the reason I was making the little nightgown in the first place.
Close up of the front of the nightgown. Megan wanted velcro closure, so I used some I had her with sticky backing....Now I will have to change the needle in my sewing machine, as it is all tacky, and also all of the pins I used to hold the Velcro in place are tacky. If I can't find any rubbing alcohol, I'll just pitch the lot of them.
This is a little homemade (obviously) nightgown I made for Jake, I think.

Well, I remember my mother making these sweet little nightgowns for her baby number four, who ended up being my brother, David. I know we were really poor at the time, and I think his layette consisted of some little undershirts, five nightgowns, diapers, plastic pants and a few pair of socks. The nightgowns were really nice, as you could hold the baby, and it was almost like they were already wrapped up in a blanket, as the nightgowns are made out of a yard and quarter of flannel.

My mother made me some of these nightgowns for Jennifer. I used them on my other kids and actually took one very worn gown apart to make a pattern out of it. I still have one very, very worn nightgown that Jennifer used....and probably most of my winter babies, as it is just about thread bare.

Megan loved the little night gowns. I made some for her firstborn, Jake. I think time was short and made the church pattern for knit nightgowns for Megan's third child, Brianna. I decided to make a couple of the original nightgowns for Megan's soon to be expected four little child. My pattern, I remembered was just a non sewn flannel pattern. What I didn't remember, was my mother gave me her original flannel pattern...and I used it instead of the pattern I am used to that I cut down. My mother's pattern is made with seam allowance for HUGE French seams....I thought they looked quite a bit larger than the nightgown that had been Jake's. Also, didn't remember about even having my mother's pattern until i started working on this latest nightgown. Let's just say it turned out HUGE! I am not certain when a baby will be able to use it.

I still plan to use up my yard and a quarter of pink cheetah fabric and make it into a little nightgown, but will use my pattern and see how it turns out. I have a little quilt with animal prints that it would coordinate with . Maybe it is time to buy baby nightgowns/clothes from china, who knows. I spent a good day working on the little nightgown and certain I can get cute store bought ones for $5 to $10 that probably fit even better.

It has been nice to be able to reminisce about all of the past babies in our family, and these little nightgowns that were so lovingly made for them. They did not have a choice of affordable, store bought baby clothes like we do, but their babies were dressed in soft, warm, handmade nightgowns.