BumGenius aplix fix-up

Tonight's project continues with the theme of working on cloth diapering items that we need for Noob's sitter. Specifically, we need more aplix (velcro) diapers. Aplix diapers are great because they are as easy as disposables -- perfect for babysitters and other people unfamiliar with cloth diapering. We have tons of diapers, but a lot of them are prefolds or diapers with snaps, and those are more complicated. I'm trying to keep it as easy as possible!

Anyway, I've mentioned previously that I got a bunch of "well loved" BumGenius 3.0 pockets a few months back for $2 each. On some of them, the velcro is so far gone that it's easier to just convert them to snaps. But a few of them appear to have salvageable front velcro. They just need the velcro tabs replaced. So that was my project for tonight:

Cotton Babies sells BumGenius "refresher kits" for $1 that include new tabs, laundry tabs, and elastic. I did buy one kit, which is useful to use as a template for cutting tabs, but for these diapers, I used aplix that I had purchased from Very Baby. It's much cheaper this way -- I spent about $12 total, including shipping, and I've made a couple of complete diapers in addition to these tab replacements, and I'm not even halfway through what I bought. Although I've been unimpressed with the quality of the aplix on the diapers I've made, so I'll have to see how these new tabs hold up over time. (Note: You definitely want to purchase aplix or touchtape online. Don't use actual Velcro brand stuff purchased at Joann's, Walmart, etc. -- it's very expensive and very low quality, so it won't hold up to the rigors of diaper laundry.)

Anyway, I just stuck the hook tab that I got from Cotton Babies to some of my loop tape, and cut around it to get a new loop tab. Then I did the same with the loop tab and my hook tape. I took the newly cut tabs and "sandwiched" the stretchy tab of the diaper between them (making sure to put the hook tab going the right way!) and then pinned it down and sewed around it twice, about 1/8" from the edge. I repeated that on the other side.

The Ribbit (green) diaper had awful laundry tabs as well, so I pulled those off and sewed on some loop tape for new laundry tabs. The laundry tabs on the Butternut (yellow) one look OK, so I left them for now.

It took about an hour total to do both diapers, including cutting the new tabs (I had pulled off the original tabs previously), and now I have two more sitter-worthy diapers! Yay!