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 :)

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 :)

Diapers

I've been meaning to do some diaper sewing for a while now, but finally got some time and motivation to sit down and do it.

Last week, I sewed up an aplix pocket diaper, since we could still use a few more to send to Noob's sitter. I used the Darling Diapers Unlimited pattern, with a PUL outer (purchased from Joann's) and a suedecloth inner (butter suedecloth from Hancock Fabrics).

It turned out OK. It's usable, and cute! But the pocket is so narrow that it is very hard to stuff. I want to try again. The pattern has the option for a "nighttime diaper" that is a little wider, so I think that will work better.

But in the meantime, I wanted to create an entry for the Cloth Diaper Foundation's Sew a Diaper contest. I used an old jersey cotton sheet set with a Texas flag print on it. These used to be our everyday sheets, but we haven't used them in years. Hubby found them in our bedroom closet a few months ago and was about to throw them out, but I snagged them, thinking they'd make great diapers. And they do!

Interior with snap-in soaker:

I made a medium. Noob is right in the middle of the listed weight range, but the pattern warns that stretchy fabrics (like the jersey cotton I used) will fit longer. Indeed, Noob was on the smallest snap settings, and the diaper was just a tad bit bigger than I would like. Not that it matters, since I wasn't planning to keep the diaper anyway!

The diaper turned out well, but I'm not thrilled with the La Di Da pattern. It's very good, but I find the Darling Diapers Unlimited pattern easier to follow, and it has tons more options. I think it fits Noob better, too.

As long as I was sending off this diaper, I decided to throw in a few more diapers that I've sewed in the past and ended up not using. I made this one prior to Noob's arrival, when we didn't know that he was a boy. It's made from the free Rita's Rump Pocket pattern. The material is flannel from two receiving blankets that we used with Littles. The RRP pattern doesn't include closures; you use diaper pins or a Snappi to secure the diaper. One nifty thing is that this makes the diaper fully reversible, so you can put either side facing out:

I also sent some newborn sized wool longies (pants). Wool makes a great diaper cover! You use it directly over a non-waterproof diaper, like a fitted or prefold. It absorbs up to 30% of its weight in liquid. Also, the lanolin in wool neutralizes urine, so you can use wool over and over and over again and it doesn't stink! I loved wool on Littles, so I sewed a ton of it when I was pregnant with Noob, but I found that I didn't like it as much for him as a newborn. Hence why these longies went unused. They are all made out of old sweaters that I bought at a thrift store:

I've started liking wool again on Noob. I've got a huge box of old sweaters that I want to turn into longies. So many potential projects, so little time :)

All of this stuff will be auctioned off at the Cloth Diaper Foundation's Hyena Cart site, starting next week!