Diapers for traveling: More serging practice

We're on our long-awaited vacation to Panama! I wanted to bring mostly Best Bottoms along on this trip, because they take up a lot less space than the diapers we usually use. Here are four Best Bottoms diaper changes (a shell with an insert + 3 additional inserts) on the left, next to four of our normal BumGenius diapers on the right:

I have one Best Bottoms shell (the brown one shown above) and had worked out a trade for two more, but unfortunately,the woman I was trading with goofed, and didn't send out the other two shells until just this week -- too late for this trip. Oh well, I'll have them for our next vacation, to Florida in September. In the meantime, I really needed at least one more shell for this trip, so I made one, using the Darling Diapers Unlimited pattern, size medium. The exterior is a 100% polyester print, and the interior is PUL, sewed so that the "shiny" side is exposed so that it can be wiped clean if it gets dirty:

I added snaps to the interior to secure the Best Bottoms inserts. I meant to do it before sewing the diaper together so that I could hide the snaps, but I forgot, so I had to do them so that they're exposed on the diaper exterior, as you see above. Here is a shot of the interior, alone and then with a large size insert:

The sizing of the shell isn't quite right: It's a little too long for medium size inserts, and a little too short for large size inserts. It's also a little wider than it needs to be. I doubt I'll sew another one of these, but if I do, I'll either shorten or lengthen the rise slightly (depending on whether I want to use medium or large inserts with it), and I'll use the DDU pattern without color sides, rather than the pattern with color sides. But we've been using this shell for the past few days on our trip and it is perfectly functional. And really cute, and soft! I have tons more of that dino print (I got 2 yards of it for just $3, from a destash at Top Shelf Fabrics!), so I'm excited to make some other stuff with it.

I also needed more inserts to go with the shells, so I got a lot more practice serging. I'm really starting to love it! It is so much faster than sewing. I made all of these inserts the night before we left, after the kids went to bed, and while packing for the trip -- that's how quickly they come together, thanks to the serger:

The top four are regular inserts and the bottom four are overnight inserts (with snaps on both sides). There is one medium size and three large size inserts of each type. The regular inserts are 3 layers of either bamboo fleece or bamboo/hemp fleece topped with 1 layer of bamboo velour. The overnight inserts are four layers of hemp fleece. All the fabric is from Nature's Fabrics. I made one more the night before the trip, which isn't pictured -- it's 3 layers of bamboo/hemp fleece topped with a layer of suedecloth for a stay-dry feel.

With that number of layers, the regular inserts aren't quite as absorbent as I'd like on their own. They do last about 1-2 hours on Noob, and it's nice having the option to add an overnight insert underneath if I need more absorbency.

These aren't the greatest pictures, but here are some action shots of the shell with a large size insert inside. It's not as trim as the real Best Bottoms shell, but it's fine:

Thanks to all this work, I'm feeling a lot more comfortable with my new serger now. Maybe even comfortable enough to try some "real" serged projects when we get home!

Adventures of a rookie... serger?

My birthday was last week and my parents got me a serger! (A Brother 1034D, to be specific, which comes highly recommended at the lower end of the serger price range.) It's a fancy type of sewing machine that cuts, sews, and finishes edges, all in one step, so it can really make sewing a lot faster!

The timing could not have been better, as I need to make a bunch of inserts for Noob's Best Bottoms shells in preparation for an upcoming trip, and inserts are way faster to sew with a serger. As it turns out, inserts are also a perfect first serging project. They sew up quickly, so if you totally mess up, it's not like you've wasted a ton of time. You don't have to be super-precise about sewing the exact right shape; you just have to get in the ballpark. And since the Best Bottoms inserts have contoured edges, rather than being perfectly straight, it gave me some excellent practice sewing some (very gentle) curves, which is definitely tricky on a serger.

Bonus: They actually turned out usable. Here is the first batch I made.

They are five layers of flannel, which is not a whole lot. But I got this flannel for cheap, and it was great practice. Here is one of the inserts inside a Best Bottoms shell. I love how trim this system is. If you haven't seen it before, definitely check out this page, which explains what it's all about. It's pretty clever, easy to use and very economical.

Then I moved on to using old t-shirts. Even cheaper! And I took pictures.

First, I folded the shirt into fourths. This gave me a total of eight layers:

I laid an insert on the t-shirt, making sure that it wasn't covering the shoulder or neck seams. Then I traced it, using a disappearing ink marker so that I wouldn't ruin the original insert:

When I was done tracing, I pushed down on the snaps on the insert. This left little indentations on the shirt, so I would know where to add snaps:

I cut around the inset. This doesn't have to be precise, because as you'll see, the serger will take care of any excess. You can also see here that I've circled where the snaps need to go:

I added the snaps, through the bottom two layers of the insert. I wanted to make this one into an "overnight" insert, which has snaps on the bottom (to snap into the shell) and on the top (to snap in a regular insert, giving double absorbency). So I flipped all the layers over and circled where the other snaps are:

Then I added the snaps. I did sockets on one side (to allow the regular insert, which has studs, to snap in) and studs on the other side (to snap into the shell). Here are my layers with the snaps added... ready to serge!

All done serging! Ready to use! You can see that the serger cut off all the excess fabric -- so easy! This took all of about 15 minutes from start to finish, including taking pictures :)

Here's how it looks with the shell. Overnight insert (with snaps on both sides) on the bottom, regular insert on top. I made the regular insert out of a t-shirt as well and accidentally left a layer with some writing on it on top... oops! Still works fine, just looks funny :)

Here's how it looks on! Still pretty trim considering this is a full 12 layers of fabric.

I love my new toy :) Hopefully by the time I'm done sewing all the inserts I need, I'll feel confident to try it out on some "real" projects!

Woven fitted diaper

Pattern: Darling Diapers Unlimited, size medium

Materials: Inner is one layer of hemp/cotton fleece, from Nature's Fabrics. Outer fabric is woven cotton. I originally bought this about a year ago, from the remnants bin at Joann's, to make wetbags. I had a large enough piece left over after making the wetbags, so I figured I'd try it on a diaper!

Diaper sewing is definitely getting easier for me. The elastic has always been the most challenging part, followed closely by the snaps or aplix. This time, I do have a few slightly crooked snaps, but the elastic is perfect! Yay!

Where I still need more practice is on sewing the soakers. For this one, I made a double long soaker, with two layers of hemp/cotton fleece. (So, four layers when it's folded over.) It ended up being a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittle bit long. Oops :)

But it does work fine folded over:

It's a snap-in soaker, so it's easy enough to switch out. I might try again, and make it a little shorter this time :)

Action shots:

I was wondering if a woven cotton outer would work for a diaper, and it does! Which is great, because woven cotton is relatively inexpensive and holds up very well to washing. Good to know!

I don't love the snaps, though. It's a little hard to get the right fit with them. The placement is particularly weird on this diaper pattern -- you can see in the first picture that there are three snaps on each wing, rather than the typical one or two. I don't know, I just don't like the way that they work, so I doubt I'll make very many more snapping diapers from this pattern. The aplix ones are great, though.

Noob has already worn this diaper overnight a couple of times. Admittedly, he's not a super heavy wetter, but the diaper worked great -- it wasn't even fully saturated in the morning. Hubby likes the ease of use of a pocket diaper for overnights, but I really love fitteds under wool covers, so I might sew up a few more of these. They are easy enough to sew (I loooooooove not having to deal with PUL!) and so soft and cute!