Fleece: Are you ready for some football?

 

Ah, fleece. If you've been following my blog from the beginning, you know that "fleece" was the most-used tag in my tag cloud for quite a while. Then summer in Texas hit... and fleece is not exactly my fabric of choice after 64 days (and counting) of temperatures over 100 degrees.

But we've been preparing our house to put it on the market, which has entailed a major clean-up of my sewing room. And oh my goodness, I have a lot of fleece. Mostly from the great Joann's remnant bin sale late last year. So, my goal over the next few months is to sew a lot of it up.

With football season right around the corner, I figured I'd start with some football-themed items. Starting with the fleece shorties shown above on Noob. Here's the back:

As I've mentioned previously, I'm an Eagles fan and Hubby is a Cowboys fan. Not surprisingly, Cowboys fabric is easy to find here in Dallas, but I had to order this Eagles fleece online. Well worth it, though. I love how these shorties turned out.

I put in a "hammock-style" extra layer in the wetzone, which allows me to use these directly over non-waterproof diapers, such as prefolds. The extra layer is just a strip of fleece, to provide extra protection from wetness. It makes for really easy diaper changes when we're hanging out at home. Here's what the inside looks like:

I didn't make this shirt -- my parents bought it for Noob. But it makes for a nice set!

Of course, Hubby would never let me get away with sewing Eagles stuff but not Cowboys stuff. And anyway, I have Cowboys fleece coming out my ears. So I sewed not one but two Cowboys soakers. Again, these are intended for use directly over a non-waterproof diaper, such as a prefold -- but they are also just cute and fun for wearing around the house!

I used embroidered fleece on the first one and it turned out OK, but I don't really like the partial star on the back:

 

The second one turned out just about perfect! I thought I had some action shots of Noob wearing it, but I guess not. Too bad, because it's so cute! And that is a high compliment coming from an Eagles fan :)

 

Finally, a soaker that Hubby and I can both approve of:

 

A couple of specifics for these projects:

• I used the Katrina longies pattern to make the shorties, and the Katrina soaker pattern for fleece to make the soakers. They are all size large.
• As I mentioned, I did a hammock-style extra layer in the shorties. For the soakers, I used an extra wetzone layer.
• I tried one of the soakers a few nights ago over a fitted diaper, and it held up great!
• The contrasting waistbands and leg cuffs all came from fleece from Joann's remnants bin. The remnants bin is a perfect place to look for contrasting fleece, because you only need a small amount (about 4") to make waistbands/leg cuffs. So it's easy to find for super-cheap in the remnants bin.
• These sew up fast. Less than an hour from cutting to done. And I am not a fast sewer, by any stretch of the imagination.

I'm sure there will be many more fleece projects to come, so stay tuned :)

An old project that came home

I mentioned in a previous post that I got back into sewing early last year, when I decided to make a Texas A&M wetbag for one of my Aggie friends who was expecting a baby and planning to cloth diaper. We happened to go to brunch the other day with that friend, and forgot Noob's diaper bag! She was kind enough to lend us a diaper... along with one of the wetbags I made :) So, I was able to snap a picture:

I was pretty proud of this project, especially at the time (it was one of the first wetbags I made!), and it looks like it's held up well over the last year or so.

Latest diapers

I tried out some new techniques and new patterns. Kinda fun.

Pattern: Rainy Days, size 2
Outer: cotton knit (Fabric.com)
Hidden layer: Bamboo hemp fleece (naturesfabrics.com)
Inner: Bamboo velour (naturesfabrics.com)
Soaker: two layers of diamond Zorb II (wazoodle.com)

This is a two-size diaper. The pictures above show it on the "medium" setting, which is what Noob wears. Below you can see it fully unsnapped for the "large" setting:

I'd heard that the size 1 of this pattern was great but that the size 2 is gigantic. It's not too bad on Noob, although he does wear it on the very smallest settings, at 23 lbs. He had a little bit of wing droop the first time he wore it, but these pictures were from the second time, and I did like the fit overall. He wore it overnight and it held up well absorbency-wise:

Next up...

Pattern: La Di Da, size medium
Outer: PUL body (fabric.com), cotton interlock tabs (Nature's Fabrics)
Inner: microfleece (Swaddlebees clearance section -- not available anymore) with modified welt pocket

The embellished tabs are not PUL-backed (like I did with the tabs on D's diaper), just straight cotton over microfleece. I was curious to see whether the diaper leaked at all at the tabs, so I did a "stress test" the other day and left Noob in it for about 3 hours (way longer than I usually go between changes). It did eventually wick at the legs, but no leaks at the tabs! Cool!

And finally...

Pattern: Darling Diapers Unlimited, size medium
Outer: body is a cotton woven print (Joann's remnants bin) backed with PUL (purchased directly from someone on Diaper Swappers), tabs are plain PUL
Inner: Microfleece with modified welt pocket (Swaddlebees clearance again)

I used the "Chelory method" for the outer of this one. Chelory is the name of the store of a popular WAHM (work-at-home mom) who makes diapers. Her diapers sell out in seconds flat -- it's crazy. What is even crazier is that she frequents the Cloth Diaper Sewing 101 board over at BabyCenter, and shares some of her tricks and techniques. Seriously, this is one of the neatest things about the cloth diaper sewing community (yes, there's a whole community out there full of crazy women like me). Both the BabyCenter board and Diaper Sewing Divas are frequented by amazing WAHMs who share their secrets. It's like if a top chef came onto a message board for newbie chefs and shared his or her favorite recipes.

Anyway, the Chelory method, as it's become known on the Cloth Diaper Sewing 101 board, is a way to put cotton outers on waterproof pocket diapers. This is trickier than it seems. Many people just put the cotton outer over a layer of PUL, but when you turn a diaper made in this manner, the edge of the cotton inner is exposed on the interior of the pocket. Cotton is a "thirsty" fabric; it just loooooooves to soak up moisture. Which is good on the inside of your diaper, but not so good on the outside of your diaper, as it leads to wicking/leaks!

With the Chelory method, what you do is cut your cotton outer a little narrower than usual at the legs. Then you attach some strips of PUL at the legs, and sew the entire thing to a full hidden layer of PUL. This means that your seams are PUL on PUL, not PUL on cotton, preventing leaks. Sound confusing? Here is a great picture tutorial on how to do it, and here is a video.

Of course, I had to make things more complicated for myself. For one, the cotton print I was using was directional, so I did a seam at the middle so that it's right side up on both the front and back of the diaper. That wasn't too bad. Much more challenging was the fact that the scrap I had wasn't wide enough for a full diaper, so I had to do plain PUL on the wings. It was a little tricky to figure out how the PUL wings fit together with the PUL at the legs. And then I messed up the PUL wings and had to cut them noticeably shorter than usual. Yikes.

And so that is why I'm amazed that this actually ended up looking like a diaper! Trust me, it looked like a total mess for most of the time I was sewing it :) Probably the most confusing part was that the seam between the cotton body and the PUL at the legs didn't lie flat. It turns out that this was just fine. The "gathers" at that seam look just fine once you insert the elastic in there, because then the elastic gathers it even more!

Whew! OK, that was a long intro. On to more pictures and action shots.

The entire outer. You can see where the seam lies, in the middle where the print changes direction. I didn't cut the legs of the cotton fabric quite evenly, and I also sewed the elastic a little differently on each leg, so if the legs look a little wonky, that's why:

But it really doesn't look bad once it's on!

I was a little confused because the tutorials I saw did not call for a PUL panel at the front or back of the diaper, so the cotton is exposed on the interior there. Wouldn't that cause leaks at those seams? But Noob wore this diaper for an hour or two, and while the insert was nowhere near saturated, it was definitely wet (at the front, at least) -- and no leaks! I'll keep using it to see if it does continue to hold up well without wicking!

Even if it doesn't work well, it was excellent practice for me, and this should be a fun diaper with football season starting up soon :)

Large wetbag

Noob's babysitter also watches a little girl, who is 5 days older than Noob. Her mom recently switched to cloth diapers and offered to pay me to sew a large wetbag for her. I used up a bunch of the leftover red cotton fabric from J's crayon wallet for the outside, and some of that big order of girly PUL that I did for the inside. I think it turned out really cute!

Rainbow dress

I got the "tie dye" fabric that I used for the bottom part of this dress a few months ago, to top off a Fabric.com order so that I could get free shipping. I didn't even really know what I would use it for, but, well, it was cheap. And Fabric.com accidentally sent me two yards instead of one, and when I pointed this out to them, they said that I could keep the extra yard. (I highly recommend Fabric.com. Their customer service is excellent!) So, I have a lot of it...

Littles has been begging me to make a dress for her out of it since the moment she first saw it. She found it once again in my pile of fabric over the weekend, and begged me again. This time, with my experience making her tutu shirt fresh in my mind, I decided to tackle the project.

Believe it or not, the top part of the dress is one of my shirts. Ummm, no, it's not from my childhood... it's from my single-woman days :) In my defense, I did have to modify it so that it would fit Littles. I wasn't wearing a shirt small enough to fit a 4-year-old :) But yeah, it's a little too tight/skimpy for my current tastes, so it's been sitting in the back of my closet for years. Just waiting to be given a new life!

Here is what it looked like originally:

I altered it by 1) cutting off the spaghetti straps and serging the ends together, 2) making the body of the shirt narrower by re-serging both sides, and 3) cutting a few inches off the bottom.

Then I cut the "tie dye" fabric to the appropriate length. It's not really tie dyed; it's a printed 100% polyester knit. Anyway, the tutorials I found suggested making the fabric about 2.5 to 3 times as wide as the shirt you're attaching it to. The fabric was 60" wide, so that was just about perfect for this shirt, which was about 22" at the waist after my modifications.

I serged the top of the fabric using a 2x differential on my serger, which gathered it slightly, and then I was able to pull the threads to gather it even more. I like this method of gathering much more than doing a basting stitch on my sewing machine. It's a little harder to gather, but it feels more secure. It's also at the very top of the fabric (since the serger cuts off any excess) so it's easier to hide with the seam attaching the top of the fabric to the waist of the shirt.

Once I had the fabric gathered, I serged the two ends together to form a "tube." Then I serged the gathered edge of the tube onto the bottom of the shirt. I used my experience with the tutu shirt to sew this one on right! Shirt right side out, skirt "tube" inside out, right sides together.

Finally, I finished the hem with a rolled-edge stitch on my serger. This made for a nice, lightweight hem that allows the dress to "splat out" (as Littles calls it) when she twirls. An important feature for any dress!

So, this was my first major project completed entirely using my new serger! It could definitely be done on a regular sewing machine, especially with knit fabric like I used, since it doesn't fray, so finishing the seams is less important. But serging gave me a nice professional finish on all the seams. I'm still getting used to my serger and definitely spent some time cussing at it during the completion of this dress :) But I really love the results!

And so does Littles: