My friend T is expecting her second baby this month, and is planning to cloth diaper, so she asked if she could pay me to make her some wet/dry bags for her to send with her baby to daycare, like the ones I made for Noob's sitter. I warned her that I'm really not very good at sewing, but she was still up for it!
So, off I went to Joann's. I took a bunch of pictures of fabric and sent them to T, for her to choose what she wanted. She picked out a really cute dots print for the exterior, and I found some coordinating fabric for the lining of the wet and dry pockets. The dark blue is broadcloth (cotton) for the dry pocket, and the turquoise is PUL for the wet pocket:
Right before I started cutting and sewing, the PUL delaminated on my own wet/dry bags :( Basically, PUL is made by laminating a waterproof layer of plastic-y material to polyester fabric. When it delaminates, the waterproof layer separates from the fabric. This definitely isn't good, but even worse is if you then throw it in the dryer, the laminate melts slightly and sticks to itself, often causing a hole when you try to separate it later.
Not good if you want your bag to stay waterproof! And once it happens, there's nothing you can do about it.
Luckily, I was able to return the PUL I had bought from Joann's (yeah, I am not using Joann's PUL ever again!) and order some from fabric.com instead. Hopefully it will hold up better...
Another problem I had with my own wet/dry bags is that on one of them, the fabric pulled through the stitching on one edge of the dry pocket, probably because my stitching was so close to the edge of the fabric. Anyway, this created a small hole. In the dry pocket, a hole is mostly a cosmetic problem, but it is certainly one I wanted to avoid on T's bags. So I sewed hers with a 1/2" seam allowance, rather than the 1/4" seam allowance that I used on my own. That gave me a slightly larger margin for error when sewing. I was also very careful to match up edges of all of the layers of fabric, to ensure a decent-sized seam allowance on each layer. This was tricky for the exterior layers, since there are four separate layers that need to match up (the two exterior layers plus the two layers making up the lining of the dry pocket), but I checked carefully after sewing and it looked like I did a good job.
Finally, I did a better job on the handles than I did on either of my bags. I cut the handles out of one piece of the dots fabric and one piece of the dark blue broadcloth. Each piece was roughly 12" x 4". I sewed the two pieces together, turned them inside out, folded in half, and topstitched the entire thing. The result is a handle that matches the bag perfectly and is not at all flimsy. As with my own bags, I added a snap on the handle, so that it can either hang (e.g. from a doorknob) or snap around something (like the handle of a stroller).
It was a lot of work... I spent a lot longer on these than I did on my own bags, really trying to get them as close to perfect as I could for T. I love how they turned out :)
I used light blue zippers, which look really nice with the blue dots:
Unzipped, showing the interior layers:
When I was done, I had some leftover scraps. I also had a 7" zipper that I purchased ages ago and never used. So I decided to surprise T by making a small wetbag for wipes.
After sewing so many wet/dry bags, making a simple wetbag was sooooooo easy :) Here's a shot of the inside, showing that same turquoise PUL.
Then I figured, well, what is a wipes bag without wipes? I have a yard of flannel that I purchased almost a year ago for a project that I ended up abandoning, so I decided to use it to make some wipes. Since the wipes bag I made is pretty narrow (I typically use a 9" zipper for my wipes bags, rather than 7"), I made the wipes narrow as well. I cut rectangles of flannel approximately 4.5" x 8.5". This size fits well in the wipes bag and also fits perfectly in an old disposable wipes container (which is what I use at home to store my cloth wipes). I put aside 10 wipes for T, but kept a few for myself, too :) Hey, Noob has had a runny nose for the last week or two (teething, I think?) and cloth wipes make excellent Kleenex's, so I like having lots on hand!
While I was working on all this, I got to talking to T about the wonders of wool as a diaper cover. She bought one of Noob's newborn wool sets from me to try out, and I figured I'd throw in a bonus pair of recycled wool longies. The legs came from the sleeves of a sweater in that big box of wool sweaters I bought for cheap, and the waistband came from an old turtleneck sweater of mine that no longer fits, as it has become a little too felted over the years. I used the Katrina pattern (same one I used for Noob's longies) in newborn size.
These look really itty-bitty, so I'm not sure they'll even fit T's baby. But I was just glad to get rid of a little more fabric out of my stash!
T got it all yesterday and she says she loves it! I hope she's not just being nice!
Sewing for a paying customer is a little stressful for me, but it was a good experience overall. I might do it again in the future if the opportunity presents itself!
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