Newborn pockets

I haven't been using pockets very much on Q. I don't know why. Prefolds are just easier to deal with, I guess.

I did make these diapers as a gift for a friend who was due in September:

From left to right: Rocket Bottoms size 1, Rocket Bottoms Totally Squared One Size, Rocket Bottoms Totally Squared Newborn/Small. Plus a wetbag. The diapers are all PUL outers (from fabric.com), suedecloth inners (alova suedecltoh from Joann's).

Here's Q trying on the two Totally Squared diapers. She is about 1 month old and 11 lbs, and she's trying them on over a prefold (because I was already running late to my friend's baby shower and didn't have time to wash them if she soiled them!). This pattern is large. She was swimming in the one size diaper, and even the newborn/small was on the large side when using the smallest setting!

This is another Totally Squared OS that I made recently. I did this one as a cover/AI2 shell, with a PUL outer, microfleece inner, and cotton interlock tabs. She is almost 4 months old and 14 lbs, and this is still pretty large on her, on the smallest setting:

I'm ehhhhh on the OS pattern right now, because it is so big. I should really try the NB/small pattern again, to see if I like that one any better.

On the other hand, I love the regular Rocket Bottoms pattern. I made a diaper for Q that's identical to the one I sewed for my friend, and it's one of my favorites. She is about 1 month old and 11 lbs in this picture, and she's wearing it on the second of three rise settings. After this, I moved it down to the smallest rise setting. She is now 4 months and 14 lbs, and is back on the second rise setting. It fits nicely and works really well stuffed with one of the trimmed newborn prefolds.

Still, despite the great fit, she did have a leak in this diaper yesterday -- leaks in prefolds + covers are virtually nonexistent. Hence why I say prefolds are just easier to deal with.

Newborn prefolds and covers

The "trimmed" newborn prefolds I made worked out really well for Q's first few weeks. They didn't fit for long -- definitely not worth it to pay a lot for them if you're expecting a >8 lb baby -- but when they did fit, they just fit so perfectly! This is at about 6 weeks old/11 lbs, which is about when she outgrew them Snappi'd. (I do still use them as inserts in some of her pocket diapers!)

Remember the teeny tiny Witteybums cover I sewed a while back? I was shocked that it actually did fit Q! It worked perfectly with a trifolded newborn prefold inside. So easy to just tuck the prefold under the flaps and fasten it on. This was at 4 days old/right around 9 lbs:

Unfortunately, I found that this combo didn't do a great job of containing breastfed baby poo, so I stopped using it after a couple of blowouts. I did use the cover as a swim diaper -- it can be tough to find swim diapers for really little ones, so this was a great option.

I found the snaps on the Witteybums to be tough to fasten on a bigger baby, so I sewed up an In A Snap cover in size newborn as well, with a velcro closure. The outer is a polyester knit and the inner is PUL. I believe this is over a Snappi'd newborn prefold. You can see the serging of the prefold peeking out through the umbilical scoop -- the scoop isn't really deep enough to make a big difference in keeping the cover off the cord stump, but it's just deep enough to make it tough to fit a prefold under it :( Aside from that, I liked this cover a lot, although again, it was so small that it was quickly outgrown and used as a swim diaper instead. She's about 2 weeks old/10 lbs here:

This is the newborn In A Snap cover that I sewed for another friend. Her baby ended up being almost 10.5 lbs at birth, so I figured there was no way this cover would fit. I had already sewed her an identical one in size small... but miraculously, she was able to get some use out of the newborn size cover, too. She was a few weeks old in this picture, not sure on weight, but obviously over 10 lbs :)

This is an In A Snap cover in size small, at about 3.5 months/14 lbs. I like the fit of this cover a lot. It is trim, but with enough coverage that I can easily get a standard infant (green edge) prefold stuffed underneath it. This one also has a polyester knit outer/PUL inner:

More newborn fitteds

Sorry for such a long hiatus, but life is crazy busy around here! I've been working on a ton of fun projects and I'm going to do my best on catching up on blogging. The pictures I use may not be the best, but at least they'll give you an idea of what I've been doing!

In my last post, I showed off some of the newborn fitteds I sewed for Q. I forgot to mention that if you're sewing diapers for a newborn and you haven't visited Mama Kat's blog yet, you should. She reviews a ton of different newborn diaper patterns (some free, some paid), and she just had a baby of her own so she's been updating the reviews with pictures of the diapers she sewed on her baby.

That said, I've tried out a few patterns that she didn't review :) First up is the Rocket Bottoms newborn pattern. This is a free pattern that was just released in August, so of course I had to sew some up before Q outgrew it! Here's the first one, on its own and then under a newborn Proraps cover. She is about 1.5 months old and around 11 lbs in these pictures.

Outer: Woven cotton (Joann's)
Hidden layer: Bamboo fleece
Inner layer: Suedecloth
Soaker: Petal style, total of six layers of bamboo fleece, topped with suedecloth

And another... similar construction to above, except the outer woven cotton is from Walmart, and the inner is minky (Joann's Soft & Comfy fabric):

On the bum, 2.5 months old, around 12 lbs:

I really like this pattern. It is sized very similarly to the Darling DIapers newborn pattern, but I think I like the shape a little better. Q outgrew both of these fitteds at around 3 months old and 13ish lbs. I lent them to a friend who is using them on her baby, who was a month old and about 7 lbs when she got them, and she says they're working great -- so they fit a pretty good size range.

This next diaper is not technically a newborn fitted. It's a Witteybums size small.

Outer: Cotton knit. This was an old t-shirt of mine that was wayyyyyyyy too short and tight for my post-baby body :) But I thought it would make a cute diaper and it does! I chose the Witteybums hip snapping pattern because it doesn't require much fabric, which was good because the shirt was pretty tiny.
Hidden layer: Bamboo fleece
Inner layer: Cotton velour
Soaker: Snake style, 3 layers bamboo fleece/1 layer cotton velour

1.5 months old and around 11 lbs in these pictures. She is currently almost 4 months and approaching 15 lbs, and it still fits well. This is one of my absolute faves.

And finally, a Rainy Days size 1. This is designed to be a newborn + small diaper in one. The front snaps down for the newborn setting, or can be unsnapped for the small setting. I think it's a little bulky for a true newborn, but it'll certainly fit from pretty early on. She's almost 4 months old and approaching 15 lbs in this picture, and it fits well on the larger ("small") setting.

Outer: Cotton interlock
Hidden layer: Bamboo fleece
Inner layer: Cotton velour
Soaker: Petal style, total of 5 layers of bamboo fleece/1 layer cotton velour.

Newborn fitteds

"Q" made HER arrival on July 2!

I made some fitteds for her in advance of her birth. She was a homebirth baby, so I wanted some diapers that recognized that. Here's what I came up with:

The white ones are all made using the larger version of the Darling Diapers free newborn pattern (DDNB). The outer layer is cut from an old white sheet, there's a hidden layer of bamboo fleece, and the inner layer is bamboo velour (except the whale one, which has an inner layer of cotton velour). The graphics on the back are silk screened, using my newest toy, a Yudu machine. I got the Yudu back in April or May, I think, and I've done a lot of fun projects with it. I'll show off some others in future posts.

The blue diaper is made using the "Arfy" NB/S fitted pattern.The outer layer is some remnant woven cotton from Joann's, hidden layer of bamboo fleece, inner layer of cotton velour.

Note that all the diapers have woven outers, which means that they fit a smaller size range than diapers made entirely with knit/stretchy materials.

Here are some close-ups of the Arfy and one of the DDNB's. Both diapers have an umbilical cord snap-down.

They also have two rows of snaps on the diaper body but one row on the wings, so you can snap into the lower row for a smaller baby and into the upper row for a larger baby. This picture shows both diapers on the largest settings.

Action shots... well, enough action as you can get out of a newborn :)

Q was born at 9 lbs 4 oz and only dropped down to about 9 lbs even, so not a tiny newborn! But all these diapers still fit well at birth, and still fit today, at 7 weeks/11+ lbs.

This is the Arfy diaper at 3 days old on the smaller setting (on the left), and 6 days old on the larger setting (on the right):

It fits nicely underneath a newborn Proraps cover:

I'm not using most of the DDNB's, because the three in the bottom row in the picture above are all waterbirth-related... and Q ended up coming out so fast that I had no time to get in the tub! Luckily, I made those two in the top row that are just homebirth. Here is one from Q's newborn photo shoot. She's 14 days old in this picture:

(Photo copyright Chasing Fireflies Photography -- highly recommend her if you're looking for a newborn photographer in the D/FW area!)

I made most of the DDNB's with one row of snaps, but here is one with two rows of snaps. I found it hard to get the umbilical cord snapped down well with this one's waist on the tightest setting, and this doesn't give you the ability to have a lower rise setting for a smaller baby. But her umbilical cord only lasted for a few days anyway, and obviously she didn't need the lower rise setting, so if I were making these again, I think I'd do the double row of snaps on all of them. Here she is in the double-row version at 4 weeks old (under a newborn Proraps cover in the picture on the right):

And the single row version. 1 month and 1 week old, and she still fits this diaper on the smaller setting, even though obviously she no longer needs the umbilical cord snapdown:

Bottom line on these two patterns: I love them both! The Arfy pattern fits a little bit smaller, so I'd recommend that if you're anticipating a smaller baby. I'm glad I have more of the DDNBs because I think they will last longer. But they are both great patterns, and you can't beat free!

By the way, if you're wondering where I came up with the graphics for the diapers, the two general homebirth ones (top row) are both from the international homebirth symbol contest. They haven't picked a winner yet, which is fine by me, as it meant I could choose my personal favorites from all the entries!

For the waterbirth ones, I did a search on Etsy for "homebirth" and noted the graphics that I liked. Then I replicated them on my own, using images I found through web searches or in the Microsoft Office clip art gallery. I put everything together using Microsoft Publisher.

Stay tuned for many more posts on new baby sewing and crafts... when my new baby lets me get around to it :)

Quick projects

Why yes, I have been sewing... in fact, with my due date just a week away, I've been in full-on crafting mode. When I'm not trying to wrap things up at work before my five-month leave, working on the nursery, finding the baby stuff that's scattered all around the house, and oh yeah, taking care of zoo camp and swim lessons and, um, dinner and laundry and the other million things that come along with having two older kids in the house.

So yes, I've been sewing, just not so much blogging :) Anyway, a few of the projects will stay top-secret until the baby's arrival.

But here are two quick projects that I can share now.

First up, a baby project... trimmed prefolds. If you're not familiar with cloth diapering and specifically prefold sizing, a quick primer. Prefolds are those big squares of cloth that your mom may have used on you, or that your grandmother almost certainly used on your mom. Now, you might ask, "I know cloth diapers have come a long way, but how much innovation can you put into a big square of cloth?" Well, quite a bit, as it turns out. Gone are the pins and plastic pants of yesteryear, in favor of Snappis and cute, soft, and durable PUL covers.

One more recent innovation is the concept of "sized" or "perfect fit" prefolds. See, traditional prefolds are relatively long and narrow. Most parents work around this by folding down the extra length. This works fine, but it does leave a big ol' bump in either the front or back of the diaper, making it bulkier. "Sized" prefolds offer a simple solution: They are cut shorter, alleviating the need to fold down the extra length and therefore the extra bulk. The best-known "sized" prefolds are offered by Green Mountain Diapers (also known as GMD), but there are now some other companies offering a similar concept, e.g. Diaper Junction and Nicki's Diapers.

Thing is, the "sized" prefolds are in somewhat high demand, so while they certainly aren't expensive (usually about $1.50-$2.00 each), it's hard to find good deals. And I like good deals :) Especially since we have more than enough hand-me-down diapers for this baby, so if I'm going to buy anything else, it better be cheap.

I found a lady on craigslist selling brand new standard infant prefolds for $1 apiece. That's more like it. As it turns out, standard infant prefolds (usually sold with green thread on the edges) are the same width as the "newborn" size for most sized prefolds, just a little longer. Well, that's easy enough to fix in a minute or two at the serger. Here are two unprepped prefolds, one normal (on the bottom) and one that I trimmed (on the top):

Prefolds shrink quite a bit when they're initially washed. Here are two trimmed prefolds, a prepped one on top and an unprepped one on the bottom:

Two prepped prefolds, a trimmed one on top and a normal one on the bottom. The trimmed one is maybe 1" or 2" shorter than the normal one. We used normal prefolds on Noob, and folded down about 1" to 2" for his first three months, so I'm thinking these should fit just about perfectly, no need to fold down.

If you're wondering about specific measurements, the untrimmed prefolds were about 12" wide and 16" long. I trimmed off 3" to make them 13" long prior to prepping. After prepping, the trimmed prefolds are about 11" wide by 10" long. This is very similar to the dimensions given for newborn sized prefolds on the sites I mentioned above.

By the way, this same trick works to turn premium prefolds into medium sized prefolds. Noob wore that size from about 13 months (when he outgrew the standard infant prefolds) till potty training shortly after 2 years, and still had some room to grow in them.

I also took the trimmings and serged them together in pairs, to make doublers. We'll see how they work.

One last really quick and semi-related project. Littles got a big dollhouse for her birthday, but felt that the bedding on the included bed was not good enough for her dolls.

So I had her pick out some flannel, cut it to size, and serged the edges for a new blanket and pillow. The stuffing on the pillow? Trimmings from a prefold :)

It all took just a few minutes and made my little girl very happy. Perfect :)

Choo-choo's

As previously noted, Noob is obsessed with trains these days. And he is also potty training. The combination of these two things makes for a lot of fun at bedtime, when he wants to wear his Thomas the Tank Engine underwear ("choo-choo's") to bed, fights getting a diaper on, and then asks to go potty (requiring full diaper removal) a bunch of times before he actually goes to sleep.

To alleviate this problem, I decided to sew him some Thomas training pants for overnights.

I wanted to use the same Trimsies Trainer pattern that I used for his training pants for school (which have worked out well and are still in use at naptime, BTW). But I also really wanted to use some Zorb II quadfold inserts that I made a long time ago, because Zorb II has been the only fabric I've been able to use consistently overnight without stink issues. The Trimsies Trainer pattern is so trim that I can't use normal inserts with it, and I don't have any Zorb II left to make Trimsies inserts with it.

Instead, I pulled out my old standby, the Darling Diapers Unlimited pattern. It has a side snap option, and many people say that any side snapping diaper can be pulled up/down like training pants.

The end result...

Pattern: Darling Diapers Unlimited, side snapping. I added about an inch to the rise of the medium size to make this more of a medium/large.
Outer: Thomas the Tank Engine woven cotton (eBay seller)
Hidden layer and wings: Old t-shirt
Inner layer: Cotton velour

No PUL, so this is a fitted diaper, requiring a cover. I made it a pocket fitted so I could adjust the absorbency as needed. I bet this would catch a pee on its own as a daytime trainer, but for nights, I stuff it with one of those Zorb II quadfolds.

Unfortunately, I don't love the fit of the side snapping version of this pattern. (I think it would work better if I had put in front elastic. I meant to, but forgot. Oops.) And the wings are not really stretchy enough to facilitate pulling it up/down. But it's perfectly functional as a diaper, just not so much as a trainer. And Noob prefers it to his other diapers, so, good enough!

 

I also made some Thomas fleece longies out of the leftover fleece from making Noob's nap mat. Katrina pattern, size large. Unfortunately, I wasn't paying attention when I cut these out, and I made probably the worst cut that I possibly could have... the only pictures of Thomas ended up all crammed into the butt area on the back, and one side was upside down. Oops. But again, perfectly functional, and Noob loves these longies and insists on putting them on whenever he sees them. Kids this age are so forgiving of sewing goofs.

 

Finally, not train related, but I sewed up some fleece shorties out of Army fleece. (I've mentioned this before, but my husband is former Army.) Katrina pattern, size large again. I actually paid attention while cutting this time :) and these turned out well.

Front:

Back:

Tag:

The inseam is a little long. I've left these unhemmed for now, but I think I might go ahead and hem them a bit. I don't want to lose the "Army Strong" on the right leg, though.

 

More baby gifts

Seriously, there will be a lot of these this year. Two of my close friends have already had babies, and there are three more due between now and September. Plus myself, of course!

One of the remaining three had her baby shower yesterday. She is the daughter of a good friend of ours, the kids' regular babysitter, and just an all-around awesome young lady, so I wanted to do something really nice for her. She decided to cloth diaper as well (seriously, I don't proselytize cloth diapering, but it's really cool that so many of my friends are coming to it on their own) and that made it easy! And since she's expecting a girl, this gave me a great excuse to use up a ton of girly PUL that I got on clearance from Fabric.com a while back. (If Q is a girl, I'm really going to have some fun :)

Top row:
Rocket Bottoms In A Snap cover, size NB. Outer is Soft 'n Comfy fabric from Joann's. Inner is PUL from Fabric.com.
Rocket Bottoms pocket, step 1 (NB/small). Outer is PUL from Fabric.com. Inner is alova suedecloth from Joann's.

Bottom row:
Witteybums cover, size small. All PUL, purchased directly from another sewing mama.
Rainy Days fitted, step 1 (NB/small). Outer is french terry, hidden layer of bamboo fleece, inner layer of bamboo velour, soaker of bamboo fleece topped with bamboo velour. All purchased directly from other sewing mamas.

Behind: Wetbag, made with PUL from Fabric.com. I usually sew the zipper on top of these, but decided to try it on the side, like this video tutorial from Wazoodle shows. I love how it turned out!

How did they turn out? Well, I think the In A Snap cover is really tiny. It may fit for the first few weeks, but I'll likely make another one in size small. On the flip side, the Rainy Days fitted seems quite large. I made it with Lastin elastic -- it's a little trickier to work with than regular polybraid, because if you stretch it as tight as it will go, it will be way too tight. But I may not have stretched it enough on this diaper. I'll have to keep experimenting, because the nice thing about Lastin (as the name implies) is that it lasts a lot longer, rather than getting all stretched out like polybraid does over time. Anyway, that diaper should work fine, it may just be more of a small/medium than a newborn/small. The other two patterns, I already sewed up for one of my other friends, and they turned out well this time around, too.

Close-up of the "handmade" tag on the In A Snap cover. I really like these for adding a bit of a professional touch. They're also a handy spot to put size tags -- I don't always put size tags on stuff I sew for my kids, because I can remember what size things are, but for gifts for other people, I figure it might be helpful.

Newborn diapers and big sister gifts

One of my good friends just had her second baby a few weeks ago. She's cloth diapering, so I figured I'd try out some newborn diaper patterns!

If you're planning to sew newborn diapers, you must check out the Mama Kat Diapers blog. She reviews tons of newborn diaper patterns (including many free ones) and provides pictures and great information.

I knew my friend was planning to use prefolds and covers, so I wanted to sew a few more covers for her. The first one I made uses the Bramblestitches pattern, size newborn. Here is a link to the pattern, and here is a link to the magazine article explaining how to sew it.

The outer is a poly print, from the Top Shelf Fabrics destash.

I used a "Handmade" tag with size tag on the back :)

The inner is PUL. I chose to sew it with the fabric side facing out, to be softer on tender newborn skin, but you could also sew it with the shiny side facing out if you wanted it to be wipeable. I've done that before, on a cover I sewed for Noob, and had no irritation problems.

Although this was newborn size, it turned out pretty big. I'd say it's more like a small size.

I think it would work well over a Snappi'd or pinned prefold. But I know many people like to just trifold prefolds and stick them in a cover. I didn't know which camp my friend is in, so I decided to sew her another cover that facilitated trifolding.

I settled on the Witteybums pattern. I forgot to post pictures of this, but I sewed up this pattern months ago for some diapers for Noob, and absolutely loved it. I did an all-in-two style diaper for Noob, but the pattern also has a neat option to make a cover with flaps to secure a trifolded prefold, very similar to a Flip cover.

I first made a newborn size cover. I knew from the diapers I sewed for Noob that this pattern has a very narrow crotch. Since it needs to fit over a prefold, I widened the crotch about 1/4", per the Mama Kat Diapers blog.

It turned out teeny tiny! Here it is next to a Proraps newborn cover. Noob was 8 lbs 11 oz at birth, and we used the Proraps covers for only about a week, until his umbilical cord fell off. Then we moved on to larger covers. The Witteybums newborn cover is even smaller than the Proraps! I'd say it's more like preemie size.

I'm going to keep it and see if it fits Q at all, but I decided to sew a small size cover for my friend. This time, I widened the crotch by about 1/2". Here are the two completed covers.

Insides of the covers. The outer is just a single layer of PUL, and then the flaps are PUL as well.

Here's the small cover with a standard infant (green edge) prefold trifolded inside:

Comparison shots of a Bummis Super Whisper Wrap size small (on the left) with the Bramblestitches NB cover (middle) and Witteybums small (right). The BSWW was one of my favorite covers for Noob. It fit him from when we stopped using the Proraps at 1 week old to a few months old. The Bramblestitches cover, in particular, has a very similar shape to the BSWW.

Finally, I decided to make my friend one pocket diaper to try out. This is a Rocket Bottoms step 1 diaper. I really like the idea of two-step diapers like this, especially when I'm sewing my own. The "step 1" diaper has a snap-down rise, allowing you to adjust it to fit from roughly 7-21 pounds. So it's designed to fit newborns (unlike one-size diapers, which are typically too bulky), but you don't put a ton of work into a diaper that's going to be outgrown in a few short weeks. Then there's a "step 2" that fits from roughly 18-40 lbs, so it fits even longer than the typical one-size diaper.

This was my first time sewing with loop fabric. Rather than just putting a narrow strip of aplix or touchtape on the front of the diaper, I put a big panel of loop fabric. Supposedly, this gives more adustability, since the tabs can be attached anywhere on the panel.

This was also my first time sewing with pre-cut aplix tabs, rather than cutting my own tabs from a strip of aplix. Very handy and professional-looking.

No pictures of the inner, but it's suedecloth (white butter suedecloth from Hancock's, my favorite!) with a modified welt pocket. For a soaker, I was hoping to use some of the Cotton Babies microfiber inserts that I have around the house, but they were just a little too wide. So I did three layers of heavy bamboo fleece, following the pattern included with the Rocket Bottoms pattern.

All three diapers together:

Of course, I couldn't forget the big sister! I made her a crayon wallet, with a personalized name tag on the front:

I got the fabric a while back, on clearance at Walmart! They have some cut fat quarter bundles that include contrasting fabrics. Perfect for this crayon wallet, which calls for a contrasting fabric for the pockets on the inside.

I goofed, and made the pockets for the crayons (on the left) too long. Weird, because I followed this tutorial exactly and it shows the shorter pockets, and when I made this for another friend a few months ago, I ended up with shorter crayon pockets. Oh well. It makes the wallet slightly harder to close properly, and it makes it harder to get the crayons out (you kinda have to push them out from the bottom of the pocket), but it works OK. One nice thing is that then the crayons don't "color" all over the rest of the interior of the crayon wallet.

This was all lots of fun to sew and I love how everything turned out!