Adventures of a Rookie Sewer: Wool longies

We've been snowed/iced in for the better part of the last week, and Noob has been pretty much living in wool longies over prefold diapers.

Prefolds are the "old-fashioned" cloth diapers that are basically a big square of cotton. Since they are just cotton, they soak through as soon as they get wet, so they need some kind of cover over them to keep the moisture in.

Covers made out of PUL (polyurethane laminate) are the most popular option these days. PUL is easy to wash and comes in all sorts of fun colors and prints. But in the olden days, moms used wool covers over diapers, and wool is still a great option today!

It absorbs up to 30% of its weight in liquid. (PUL simply keeps the liquid in but doesn't absorb.) That makes it a great choice for heavy wetting babies.
It's breathable, allowing air to circulate, rather than locking moisture in and air out like PUL does.Ever heard of letting a baby go diaperless to "air out" a diaper rash? Using a wool cover is the same idea, but much less messy!
Although it does have to be hand washed, you only have to wash it once every few weeks! The lanolin in wool neutralizes urine odor, so the wool doesn't stink.

Wool longies are basically wool pants, so they're a diaper cover and an article of clothing all in one. They are so cozy in winter, they make for easy diaper changes on squirmy older babies like Noob (I just get his diaper on quickly and then I can let him stand up while I put on his longies), and they are nice and trim. Noob has been rotating through two pairs of longies and he desperately needs more!

Luckily, wool is a great material for rookie sewers! It is much easier to work with than PUL. (PUL tends to be slippery, you have to be careful about poking too many pin/needle holes in it because then moisture can escape, etc.) It's also easy to find for cheap at your local thrift store, or possibly even in your closet!

Indeed, in my closet, I have two big boxes of wool sweaters that I got from a local mom who was moving and wanted to get rid of them. I paid $10 for probably 20 or 25 sweaters! The one I used for these longies was one of my favorites. It's a super soft lambswool sweater from J.Crew.I should have taken a "before" picture, but here's the sweater after I cut it up. You can sort of see that the body of the sweater was a heather gray and the sleeves were black:

I felted the sweater slightly, which basically means washing it on warm or hot water, and drying it in the dryer. This causes the wool to shrink and thicken up, which makes it better at keeping moisture in. Be careful of overfelting... in the past, I've felted sweaters so much that they barely stretch anymore. Longies made of overfelted wool are very hard to get onto a baby! I got this one just right. It's nice and thick, but still stretchy.

I used the Katrina pattern for longies to make the longies. It's easy to sew, it fits great, and it's completely free. I used a size small for Noob, who is right around 20 lbs. Note that you can also use the Katrina pattern to make fleece longies, but the sizing is really different in wool vs. fleece. Noob is a size medium in fleece longies.

I cut two of the longies pattern from the gray body of the sweater. Important: The pattern is not symmetrical. It's cut higher in the back than in the front (to fit over bulky cloth diapers). You need to make sure to flip the pattern over when cutting the second piece, or cut on the other side of the fabric. So when you put the fabric wrong sides together (or right sides together, for that matter), they should match up perfectly. I hope that makes sense. When I first sewed this pattern, I cut two identical pieces and then they didn't fit together when I went to sew them!

Anyway. The sleeves of this sweater were wide enough that I was actually able to cut them open and lay them flat, then use the pattern to cut the pieces, just like I did with the body of the sweater. In the past, I've also used this tutorial to make longies out of sweater sleeves, but I find it's a little harder to get the sizing just right.

I cut a black waistband out of the scraps from one of the sleeves. I couldn't get a long-enough contiguous piece of gray fabric, so I cut two smaller pieces (adding an extra half inch to the total length) and sewed them together..

Then I sewed the black waistband on the gray pants, and vice versa, for a nice contrasting effect. Done! It only took me about an hour to sew up both pairs of longies once I got all the fabric cut. Easy!

And oh-so-cute...