My first paid project :)

My friend T is expecting her second baby this month, and is planning to cloth diaper, so she asked if she could pay me to make her some wet/dry bags for her to send with her baby to daycare, like the ones I made for Noob's sitter. I warned her that I'm really not very good at sewing, but she was still up for it!

So, off I went to Joann's. I took a bunch of pictures of fabric and sent them to T, for her to choose what she wanted. She picked out a really cute dots print for the exterior, and I found some coordinating fabric for the lining of the wet and dry pockets. The dark blue is broadcloth (cotton) for the dry pocket, and the turquoise is PUL for the wet pocket:

Right before I started cutting and sewing, the PUL delaminated on my own wet/dry bags :( Basically, PUL is made by laminating a waterproof layer of plastic-y material to polyester fabric. When it delaminates, the waterproof layer separates from the fabric. This definitely isn't good, but even worse is if you then throw it in the dryer, the laminate melts slightly and sticks to itself, often causing a hole when you try to separate it later.

Not good if you want your bag to stay waterproof! And once it happens, there's nothing you can do about it.

Luckily, I was able to return the PUL I had bought from Joann's (yeah, I am not using Joann's PUL ever again!) and order some from fabric.com instead. Hopefully it will hold up better...

Another problem I had with my own wet/dry bags is that on one of them, the fabric pulled through the stitching on one edge of the dry pocket, probably because my stitching was so close to the edge of the fabric. Anyway, this created a small hole. In the dry pocket, a hole is mostly a cosmetic problem, but it is certainly one I wanted to avoid on T's bags. So I sewed hers with a 1/2" seam allowance, rather than the 1/4" seam allowance that I used on my own. That gave me a slightly larger margin for error when sewing. I was also very careful to match up edges of all of the layers of fabric, to ensure a decent-sized seam allowance on each layer. This was tricky for the exterior layers, since there are four separate layers that need to match up (the two exterior layers plus the two layers making up the lining of the dry pocket), but I checked carefully after sewing and it looked like I did a good job.

Finally, I did a better job on the handles than I did on either of my bags. I cut the handles out of one piece of the dots fabric and one piece of the dark blue broadcloth. Each piece was roughly 12" x 4". I sewed the two pieces together, turned them inside out, folded in half, and topstitched the entire thing. The result is a handle that matches the bag perfectly and is not at all flimsy. As with my own bags, I added a snap on the handle, so that it can either hang (e.g. from a doorknob) or snap around something (like the handle of a stroller).

It was a lot of work... I spent a lot longer on these than I did on my own bags, really trying to get them as close to perfect as I could for T. I love how they turned out :)

I used light blue zippers, which look really nice with the blue dots:

Unzipped, showing the interior layers:

When I was done, I had some leftover scraps. I also had a 7" zipper that I purchased ages ago and never used. So I decided to surprise T by making a small wetbag for wipes.

After sewing so many wet/dry bags, making a simple wetbag was sooooooo easy :) Here's a shot of the inside, showing that same turquoise PUL.

Then I figured, well, what is a wipes bag without wipes? I have a yard of flannel that I purchased almost a year ago for a project that I ended up abandoning, so I decided to use it to make some wipes. Since the wipes bag I made is pretty narrow (I typically use a 9" zipper for my wipes bags, rather than 7"), I made the wipes narrow as well. I cut rectangles of flannel approximately 4.5" x 8.5". This size fits well in the wipes bag and also fits perfectly in an old disposable wipes container (which is what I use at home to store my cloth wipes). I put aside 10 wipes for T, but kept a few for myself, too :) Hey, Noob has had a runny nose for the last week or two (teething, I think?) and cloth wipes make excellent Kleenex's, so I like having lots on hand!

While I was working on all this, I got to talking to T about the wonders of wool as a diaper cover. She bought one of Noob's newborn wool sets from me to try out, and I figured I'd throw in a bonus pair of recycled wool longies. The legs came from the sleeves of a sweater in that big box of wool sweaters I bought for cheap, and the waistband came from an old turtleneck sweater of mine that no longer fits, as it has become a little too felted over the years. I used the Katrina pattern (same one I used for Noob's longies) in newborn size.

These look really itty-bitty, so I'm not sure they'll even fit T's baby. But I was just glad to get rid of a little more fabric out of my stash!

T got it all yesterday and she says she loves it! I hope she's not just being nice!

Sewing for a paying customer is a little stressful for me, but it was a good experience overall. I might do it again in the future if the opportunity presents itself!

More cloth diapering stuff

I sent the wet/dry bag that I made the other night to Noob's sitter today, and it worked well! I sewed up a second one tonight:

I got both zippers going the same direction this time :) But I goofed on the handle again. I decided to make it with a layer of the printed woven cotton, backed with a layer of denim, to make it more durable. I thought I cut enough woven cotton to be able to fold it over, hiding the denim. But I didn't. So now the denim is visible on the back of the handle, and it looks a little funny. But it's not too bad, and it does make the handle feel a lot less flimsy.

We're also sending lots of cloth wipes over to Noob's sitter, so I made some more for us to use at home:

Cloth wipes are super easy. This page gives a couple of options for how to make them. I do the "Tricky" way, which is really not all that tricky. In the past, I've made wipes out of old flannel receiving blankets or t-shirts, but I got fancy this time and used a cute flannel print -- from the Joann's remnant bin, of course. They came out great!

I love cloth wipes because they save so much money. For less than $10 in materials and an afternoon's worth of work, you can easily sew up a stash of cloth wipes that will last you for years.

Wet/dry bag

Hubby is back at work after paternity leave, which means that Noob is now in child care outside the home. We found a lovely woman to watch him out of her home, and she is even willing to do cloth diapers. But there are a few things that we don't need at home but we do need to send over with Noob. That means I have some sewing to do!

First up, I need to make some large wetbags. Wetbags are bags with waterproof material on the inside, so that they can hold... well, wet stuff. So they're great for transporting dirty cloth diapers. I also use them to hold wet swimsuits/towels at the pool, to hold soiled clothes when we're out, etc. They are very handy things to have around, even if you don't use cloth diapers!

I've made wetbags before, using this tutorial. The instructions look complicated, but they're pretty easy, once you get the hang of it. This time around, I wanted to add a twist. I had heard that Planet Wise's wet/dry bags are handy for sending to daycare. They have two pockets, one that is waterproof ("wet") and one that is not ("dry"). So the clean diapers go in the dry pocket in the morning, and then the dirty diapers go in the wet pocket throughout the day.

I usually use woven cotton for the outer fabric of my wetbags, because it's easy to find and reasonably priced. This particular fabric was a Joann's remnant bin steal. It was a Red Tag clearance fabric, so it was only $3 for a yard (regularly $6/yard). Then I bought it when Red Tag fabrics were on sale for 50% off, dropping it down to $1.50. Then that yard was in the remnants bin, while remnants were on sale for 75% off, so that dropped it down to just 37 cents. Like I said, a steal!

Anyway. I cut two big pieces of the printed cotton fabric, about 15"x18". I wanted the bag to be lined. I wanted to make two bags out of my yard of printed fabric, so I didn't have enough printed fabric for the lining. I grabbed an old white pillowcase and cut that up instead!

I took one of the pieces of printed fabric and one of the pieces of pillowcase, and cut them about 5" from the top, to create two pieces.

I got out my first zipper, and followed the instructions in the tutorial to attach it to the larger piece of printed fabric and pillowcase lining -- basically, steps 2-4 in that tutorial. I placed the pillowcase lining down, then placed the zipper on top facing up. I lined up the top edge of the zipper with the top edge of the lining. Finally, I put the printed fabric face down and lined up the top edge of the fabric with the top edge of the zipper.

Then I sewed all the layers together, opened up the fabric, and topstitched through all layers. Very important: I always use 100% polyester thread when sewing wetbags. Thread with cotton in it will wick moisture from the inside of the bag to the outside. Not. Good.

I repeated these steps to attach the smaller piece of fabric and lining to the other side of the zipper. Then I was able to open it up, like this (the lining fabric is underneath the printed pieces):

I cut another piece of pillowcase that was the same size as this entire piece of fabric/zipper. I treated that entire dealio (the two pieces of fabric and lining attached to the zipper plus the large piece of lining) as one piece of fabric.

For the waterproof inner, I used PUL (polyurethane laminate), purchased at Joann's. PUL is waterproof, is very durable, and launders well. I cut two pieces of PUL, a little bigger than my pieces of fabric.

From there on out, I followed the tutorial, attaching my fabric/zipper/lining/lining piece and one piece of PUL to one side of the second zipper, then attaching the other piece of fabric and other piece of PUL to the other side of the zipper. Then I stitched around the fabric pieces to form a bag, stitched each side of the PUL (leaving the bottom open), turned the whole thing inside out, and stitched the bottom of the PUL bag closed. (See the tutorial for step-by-step directions and pictures).

Here is the fabric/zipper/lining/lining piece on top of the PUL with the second zipper sandwiched in between. You can see that the PUL is bigger than the fabric. I find that the layers tend to shift around while I'm sewing, so making the PUL bigger gives me some wiggle room if the fabric does shift on top of the PUL:

Second zipper added, fabric bag all sewed up, two sides of the PUL bag all sewed up. I had to remember to unzip both zippers part of the way prior to sewing. Otherwise, I would have sewed the zippers outside the bags! I also added a handle. You can barely see it in between the two zippers on the right side:

And that's that! Oh, one last very important thing: I threw the bag in the dryer on high heat. That makes the PUL melt slightly, to seal up any holes made by the sewing machine needle, pins, etc. while sewing.

Here's a close-up of the bag in action with diapers in both pockets. You can also see the snap I added on the handle, so that it can snap around the handle of a stroller, etc.:

I'm excited to send it over with Noob! I'm going to sew up more of these, so that I have 2-3 of them, since we do diaper laundry every 2-3 days and will throw these bags in with the laundry.

Next time, I think I'm going to make the handle out of a few more layers of fabric or out of webbing, so that it is more durable. This one feels really thin and flimsy, so I don't know how it's going to hold up over time. Also, I sewed the two zippers going the opposite directions :) You can see that the dry pocket zipper is at the bottom in the picture above, while the wet pocket zipper is at the top. Oh well! It should work just fine!

Final cost: 37 cents for the outer fabric, nothing for the lining (yay upcycling!), $5 for the PUL... and $2 each for the zippers! Hancock Fabrics does 50% off all zippers on occasion, and I have got to hit up that sale next time they do it, because zippers are kind of expensive. But anyway, that works out to less than $10 total for the bag, and I still have enough fabric left over to make another one. Given that the Planet Wise version is $30, I think I can live with flimsy handles and zippers that go opposite directions :)