January Pinterest Project | Scrub Pants

I've been a nurse for about 19 months. And I've FINALLY gotten around to making some adjustments to my scrubs to make them a bit more user-friendly.

You see, I have virtually no diversity in my scrubs. Some nurses have HUNDREDS of scrub tops that they've collected over the years. Solids, prints, holiday themes, you name it. When it was time for me to branch away from my nursing school scrubs, I wanted to wear solid colored scrubs. I wanted the tops and bottoms to be the same color. All black, or all pink, or all blue.

I started looking for scrub tops I liked. I struggled. I'm petite and am definitely not flat chested. I didn't want my scrub top to hang long and I didn't want it tight either. So I found a top that I liked made by Cherokee. It's a mock wrap style (#4800). What I liked is that it's only 23.5 inches long. Other styles are much longer. It was the shortest scrub top that I could find. Score. I own nine different colors and there are plenty more colors I could buy, if I wanted.

When I looked for the coordinating scrub pants, I bought a couple that I thought would work, but eventually was unhappy after about a month of wearing them. The fabric was kinda rough and the drawstring waistband seemed to get loose over the course of my shift and I feared being one of those nurses bearing her butt crack to the patient, their family and my peers. I can't stand seeing professional nurses showing off crack. So no go. Those three pairs are hanging in my storage closet never to be worn again. Not sure why I'm holding on to them.

So it was back to shopping for scrub pants. Unfortunately, I couldn't find matching scrub pants to coordinate with the various colors of my tops for the solid top to bottom look, so I decided to go with black bottoms (or navy) and colored tops.

I was at Super Shoes and discovered they carried petite scrub bottoms by Peaches. I fell in love!  The reason I love them is for the waistband. They are still a drawstring style but have a ribbed knit waistband that is very soft and comfortable and there's NO butt crack during those inevitable squatting moments of nursing. They are awesome!  Plus they come in Petite and so no hemming! Yay!

Anywhoo... I love these pants, but over the past 18 months I have found some downsides. First off, there was no scissor hook. The scissor hook holds your scissors, which means you don't have to put them in your pocket.  I avoided the whole scissor-in-my-pocket thing by attaching a retractable badge holder around one of the scissor handles and clipped them to my side pocket. When needed, I just grab my scissors and pull to whatever I'm cutting...and when done they retract back. I've never lost a pair of scissors!  But I found that I didn't like that my scissors banged against my leg as I walked down the hall.

Secondly, the side pockets (near knees) on these scrub pants are pretty big. They are about 7" deep and 6" wide. Not only do I have to bend over to reach into the bottom of my side pockets, but my penlight and markers end up laying sideways at the bottom. Sometimes I found bruises on my thighs where my markers had pressed in while I was sitting down. Ugh.

So I decided that it was time to fix these minor inconveniences. So here's what I did:

#1. Scissor loop added. Now, mind you, these are not my nursing scissors! I just tucked my sewing scissors in so you'd see how the loop worked. My medical scissors are much smaller. I will still continue to use the retractable badge holder clipped to the pocket above, but now my scissors won't bang my leg as I walk down the hall or get tangled up with IV tubing!  Many scrubs already have this loop attached, but again, I liked the waistband on these scrubs more than I wanted a scissor loop...and it was NOT hard at all to attach the loop.  For those of you who know me, you already know I have a love for plaids and tartans. You can pretty much tell that from my blog design. hehe.  Anywhoooo, I found some scrap plaid fabric that I kept when I converted a plaid flat sheet to a fitted sheet. I used a piece of scrap that was already hemmed on one side, cut up 6 little loops and made it a bit more tidy and tacked the loop on to my scrub pants with just straight stitches on either side. I attached the loop just above the right side pocket (I'm right-handed) at a position that worked with the retractable ID holder length. Very customized. 

The plaid loop is fun (for me), but could also be mistaken for a brand label (about the same size).  I decided to just attempt this on one pair of scrub pants at first so that I could try it out at work to make sure I had it positioned right and that it would work how I expected. I'm THRILLED. I love the plaid and it's nice to not have my scissor banging on my leg or catching on various things! YAY!

#2. Pocket modified. My highlighter, dry-erase marker, permanent marker and pen light are kept in my left side pocket (near knee). I don't need them as often, as say a writing pen--which is kept in my scrub top pockets.  First, I raised the bottom of the pocket to a more appropriate level by straight stitching a horizontal stitch from one side of the pocket to the other based on the height of my pens. Second, in order to keep the pens upright in the pocket, I sewed a vertical stitch up the middle of the pocket thus dividing the pocket into two smaller pockets. No genius here folks...just common sense.

I'm so glad that I went ahead and got this Pinterest Project done at the beginning of the year and didn't wait any longer! I LOVE my modifications! YAY!