Sewing for a cause

The organizer of the cloth diaper group here in Dallas recently started up a charity called the DFW Cloth Diaper Project. It aims to provide free cloth diapers (along with education on how to use them) to homeless teen moms in our area. I can't even imagine the challenges that these girls are facing, so if they can not have to choose between food and diapers -- well, that's a small step in the right direction.

So, Fabric.com had a ridiculous blow-out deal on PUL last week. With prices dipping down to just a little over $3/yard, I decided I had to buy a bunch of it. Sadly, it's all girly colors, nothing I want to use on Noob... but I figured it would be perfect for sewing diapers for the charity. I have so much of it that I couldn't possibly sew it all up myself, so I'm hoping to teach some classes on cloth diaper sewing and get some other local ladies working on this. Yeah, me, teaching cloth diaper sewing classes -- it's the blind leading the blind, I tell ya.

Anyway. Once the PUL arrived, I got to work on my first diaper. Of course, I had to try out a new pattern :) This one is the free Sprout Snap pattern. It doesn't come with sewing instructions, but since all diapers sew up pretty much the same, it's easy enough to do if you've sewn a few other diapers before.

The reason I chose this one over the ones I already have is that it's a one size pattern. I kinda prefer sized patterns to use with Noob, in part because I think they're a little trimmer, in part because he'll likely potty train out of the mediums he's wearing now, so they're basically the one size/only size he'll need :). But for this project, obviously it's a lot more efficient to sew a single one-size diaper versus a small diaper, a medium diaper, and a large diaper.

Here it is. PUL outer (from fabric.com), suedecloth inner (Alova suedecloth from Joann's):

You can see the crossover snaps on the wings to allow it to fit a smaller baby:

Hard to see, but that's another welt pocket on the inside:

Of course, I needed a model. Hubby wasn't thrilled with me using Noob to model a pink diaper. Oh well :) He didn't seem to mind!

Noob is on the medium rise setting. One thing I didn't like is that in between the two rise snaps, the PUL sticks out. The snaps keep the sides of the PUL folded under, but in the middle, where there is no snap, it unfolds and points out. This doesn't affect function, but it looks funny. Maybe I'll add a third rise snap in the middle to prevent this.

I didn't topstitch the leg elastic. The pocket is just big enough to fit an insert as it is, so I knew it would be too small if I did a casing. As with the other two pockets I sewed, the inner fabric has a tendency to roll out. (It's always the left leg that does this -- it has to have something to do with the way I'm sewing it.) But those other pockets have been holding up well, despite my fears that the inner rolling out would lead to wicking. So I think it will be OK. And it really is so much easier to sew this way. In this picture, you can see the tan suedecloth rolling out at the leg:

Looking forward to sewing more of these and putting some other babies in cloth!

Pajama shorts: Fathers Day present

Hubby wore his Cowboys pajama pants all winter long, but with temperatures in the triple digits these days, it's a little warm for fleece pants! With Fathers Day right around the corner and a bunch of Cowboys flannel in my fabric closet (I bought it a while back... I can't even remember what I originally planned to use it for), I knew exactly what I needed to sew next:

Pajama shorts! Pattern is Simplicity 9330, size large. I sewed it pretty much as instructed, except for doing french seams instead of leaving raw seams on the inside. Very easy to sew. They're pretty baggy -- I think I could have easily gotten away with a medium or even a small instead. But for pajamas, baggy is fine.

I paired it with two picture frames with pictures of each kid. Did I do good? :)

Wetbags: Always fun to sew out of stash!

My friend T, who I made the wet/dry bags for a few months ago, contacted me last week to see if I could make some wetbags for a family member who is expecting soon and planning to cloth diaper. There was one small catch: The baby shower was coming up soon and so she needed me to ship the finished bags by Saturday. I agreed, with one small caveat: I had to be able to make the bags with what I had at home already in my stash. Hubby was traveling on business last week and I knew I wouldn't have time to hit up a fabric store to buy any additional supplies.

Luckily, I just got some cute printed PUL, including that Later Gator print that I used on those pocket diapers I showed in my last post. T really liked a print called "Winter Giraffes." I went through my massive eBay zipper stash and found some dark brown zippers that were the appropriate length and matched the print well.

The result... two large wetbags and a smaller bag for wipes:

I sewed these in a similar way to the "quick and dirty" wetbags that I did previously, but with a few small tweaks.

For starters, I added handles. For the two larger bags, I did a layer of PUL and a layer of white suedecloth for the handles. I don't love how they turned out, because the suedecloth does peek through a bit at the edges of the handle. For future reference, handles should always be entirely the same material.

Anyway, here is a shot of the handle when I was sewing. This was when I made the first seam, with wrong sides together. I made sure that the handle was pointing to the outside (i.e. in the same position it would be on the finished bag). I then sewed the seam and sewed back and forth a few times across the handle to reinforce it. Hard to see in the thumbnail, but you should be able to see it if you click to enlarge:

Then I turned the bag inside out (right sides together) and sewed the second seam. The end of the handle ended up peeking through into the inside of the bag. I trimmed it down so that it was fairly flush with that second seam. Since the end of the handle is visible, it's important to either finish that end or use fabric that doesn't fray. Also, I think it's good to use 100% polyester fabric; cotton fabric might wick moisture from inside the bag to the outside of the handle.

I also sewed the zippers a bit differently. On the PUL-only wetbag I did previously, the raw ends of the zippers were still visible. This time, rather than trimming down the zipper to be the same width as the wetbag, I left a little bit of a tail on the zipper. When sewing the second set of side seams, I made them wide enough at the top (about 5/8") to encase those zipper tails -- so the tails ended up in between the first and second side seams, just like the raw edges of the sides of the PUL. Then, once I was past the zipper tail, I slowly decreased the seam allowance until it was about 1/4". The result isn't super noticeable from the outside of the bag, and I think it makes the zipper ends look much more finished and professional:

Finally, I figured out a little sewing technique that made sewing these easier. I've always had trouble when sewing wetbags because the PUL tends to stretch/slide as I sew down the zipper. In the past, I've been able to compensate enough to make that seam work in spite of the stretching/sliding, but when I sewed the first of these bags, I was having an awful time with that darn zipper. Teflon foot, zipper foot, didn't matter. Finally, I flipped the fabric over, so that the zipper was on top and the PUL was on the bottom, shiny side down, and I sewed with a regular ol' zig zag foot (straight stitch, though). This worked really well! Hardly any stretching/sliding! I'm not sure why I've always sewn with the PUL on top, but I'm definitely going to try PUL on bottom again if I do another wetbag!

Hopefully all that makes sense. These did take a little longer than I expected because of figuring out some of these tweaks, but they were still reasonably quick to sew up. I did get them done and off to T on Saturday!

And I still have a diaper cut left of that Winter Giraffes fabric to make a diaper for Noob :)

Pocket diapers

My dad visited last weekend and asked what I would sew once Noob is potty trained :) OK, so I have been doing a lot of diapers as of late... but part of the reason is that I do know that I won't be sewing diapers forever. (Thank goodness!) It's also a good thing to practice sewing skills on, because if a diaper comes out less than perfect, I can still use it without anyone else seeing it. And I do have a couple of non-diapering projects that I'm working on, too; they're just taking a little longer to finish up. Because I keep stopping to sew diapers :)

I've been working on pocket diapers as of late. First up...

Pattern: Very Basic AIO (by Very Baby), size medium

Outer: PUL (from fabric.com)

Inner: Suedecloth (from Joann's)

Closure: Aplix loop with touchtape hook. I did this because I had a little bit of touchtape hook that I wanted to use up, but I really like the combo. Touchtape hook/loop is a little too strong, and aplix hook/loop always sounds like it's about to rip open as Noob moves around (although it never actually does open). Touchtape hook/aplix loop is just right, grippy enough to feel like it will hold without being so grippy that you have to pry it apart.

This pattern does not have an option for a pocket, and somehow, I missed the excellent directions online for sewing it with a back pocket. Instead, I sewed it using the Darling Diapers Unlimited directions. Specifically, I cut the outer and inner layer as directed in the Very Basic pattern. I used those as being equivalent to the DDU pattern with and without color sides, and followed the DDU instructions for sewing a pocket with rolling leg elastic.

I've found that the medium size fitteds I sewed using the Very Basic pattern are a little short in the rise, but this pocket actually fits OK. I think it's because II sewed the back elastic on differently. With the fitteds I've done, following the Very Basic instructions, the back elastic is about an inch below the back edge of the diaper. With this pocket, following the DDU instructions, the elastic is in a casing right at the back edge of the diaper:

That makes it fit just about perfectly.

Now, for some action shots. I don't love the fit of this diaper on Noob. It seems bulky. Keep in mind that in these pictures, it is stuffed with his overnight insert, which is definitely bulkier than his daytime ones -- but still, the diaper itself just seems to have a lot more room in it, and not in a good way.

 

Awwww, buddy, it's not that bad :)

 

So. It's usable, but definitely not my favorite. Next up...

Pattern: La Di Da, size medium

Outer: PUL body, Later Gator print. I purchased it from another mom, but this print is widely available online, e.g. at Nature's Fabrics. Tabs are anti pill fleece from Joann's. I used this tutorial to do the tabs. (You must register for Diaper Sewing Divas to see the tutorial --  DSD is free, and it's a fantastic resource if you're sewing diapers!)

Inner: Microfleece, purchased from the Swaddlebees clearance section last year. (It's not there anymore, sorry.)

The pocket is a modified welt pocket, sewn using this tutorial, also on DSD. I did it this way because the LDD pattern only comes with instructions for a front pocket, which I wasn't thrilled with. But I'm glad I tried the welt pocket, because I love it! It is ridiculously easy to sew, it looks very professional, it does a great job of keeping the insert in place, and it works with any diaper pattern. (You cut out the inner piece following the pattern and then add the pocket to it -- there are no special cuts or sewing instructions required for the pocket, so you can do it on any pattern that has an inner!) I might give the Very Basic pattern another shot and do this type of pocket...

See? No insert peeking out!

Closure: Snaps. The La Di Da pattern has an excellent suggestion for snap usage. Normally, you do sockets (the "female" part of the snap) across the front of the diaper and studs (the "male" part) on the wings. That means that you use around 15-20 sockets per diaper and only 4-6 studs, so you go through sockets much faster than studs.

The LDD pattern suggests using sockets on half the diaper front and studs on the other half. Then you can do one wing with sockets and the other with studs. This allows you to use up sockets and studs equally! Nice! You might have to click this image to see it, but the snaps on the right side of the diaper front are studs, and the snaps on the left side are sockets.

I love how this diaper turned out, but there is one small issue. The pattern calls for topstitching around the front and back, but not around the legs, just like the Very Basic diapers I've been sewing. Someone asked me yesterday about the lack of leg topstitching on the Very Basic diapers -- specifically the fitteds that I've posted earlier. I actually really like non-topstitched elastic on fitteds. For starters, it's way easier to sew. It also seems to be a little gentler on Noob's thighs than topstitched elastic.

I don't like it as much for pocket diapers, because I think it's more likely to leak. In theory, the PUL outer is supposed to "roll in" around the legs to prevent leaks. In practice, that's not always happening, on either the Very Basic pocket or the LDD pocket. The right leg on the LDD is fine:

But see how the microfleece inner is rolling out on the left leg?

I'm sure this is due to my rookie sewing "skills," but I'm not entirely sure how to fix it.

I have the same problem with one of the legs on the Very Basic diaper. I tried that one overnight and it did wick some around the legs, although that was a pretty serious stress test, so it might hold up under normal usage. I haven't had any leaks yet with the LDD. I'll keep testing them and see how they do, but for now, I don't want to sew a whole lot of pocket diapers in this way. I will keep doing it this way for fitteds, since they have a waterproof cover over them anyway, so it doesn't really matter if the inner material rolls out.

Oh, and I could just topstitch the legs on the Very Basic diaper, but the LDD's pocket is so narrow as it is that if I topstitched the legs, I don't think the insert would fit inside anymore. Too bad, because I looooooooooooove the fit of this diaper! So trim!

 

Noob approves, too :)

So far, the only pattern I've found that really gives a good fit for a pocket (large enough to stuff easily with an insert, without being too bulky) is the Darling Diapers Unlimited pattern. So I decided to give that a shot, with the same contrasting wings. It took a little bit of tweaking to get a wing pattern that worked. Essentially, it was the same as the tutorial I linked above for the LDD pattern, except instead of trimming the "tail" off the bottom of the tab pattern, there is a "tail" on both the top and the bottom.

Anyway, here it is. DDU, size medium. Outer and inner are the same as for the LDD diaper above, and I used the welt pocket opening again.

Here's the back. I like how the contrasting tabs "wrap around" to the back just a little more than they do on the LDD diaper.

Hey, do you like the size tag? :) I got a bunch of them from Assunta Store. She ships from China, so it is a little slow (I think it took about two weeks), but she throws in some extras to make up for it. One of my "extras" was the green snaps that I used on both this diaper and the LDD one -- nice, huh?

Speaking of snaps, I had sworn off doing them after using them on a DDU fitted that I sewed a little while back... but obviously, I gave them another shot. They work perfectly on this diaper, as the fleece tabs and the microfleece inner have just enough stretch to give a good fit. It really works well. I'm sad now that I didn't get more microfleece when it was available. It's more expensive than suedecloth (which I can regularly get locally for around $3/yard, compared to $5-$6/yard + shipping for even the cheapest microfleece), but it's so nice having a little stretch.

Oh, and you can see that I did topstitch the legs on this one. I had forgotten what a pain that is :) Seriously, I think it took me upwards of an hour just to topstitch the darn thing, including sewing the back elastic's casing not once, not twice, but three times because I kept catching the elastic in my stitching. Grrrrrrrrr. But it is nice when it's finished!

Whaaaaaaaaat? You want action shots? Are you serious?

Okay, okay...

 

I think this is my new favorite diaper :)