Travel Wetbag

I followed the tutorial on Lemon Squeezy Home for this travel wetbag.  It's great for storing a couple of cloth diapers or for soiled clothing or even swimsuits.  It's waterproof and washable.

Remember when I said I hated sewing PUL?  Well I still hate it.  I tried two different methods- baby powder and sewing over a plastic shopping bag, to keep the sticky side of the PUL from pulling in my machine.  I was only marginally successful.  Don't look too closely at the top stitching around the zipper because it's really really crooked.

This one is going to be a gift for my sister-in-law's baby girl.  

They cloth diaper too so I hope they will enjoy it.

I made another one for me because I liked the first one so much.

Cloth Diaper Sewing Tutorial

I made another diaper, and this time I drew out a pattern and made a tutorial so you can make it too.  This 100% cotton diaper requires a separate cover, and optionally you can add a soaker for more absorbency.  This diaper doesn't require a serger, since I don't have one (hint hint hubby, my birthday is in June!)

Here's my pattern.  If you'd like to make a diaper, use a large piece of paper ( or 4 sheets of 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper taped together) and draw out this pattern.  The grid lines are 1 inch apart.

Materials needed:
100% cotton printed material- 1/2 yard
100% cotton flannel- 1/2 yard
cotton terry cloth (or an old towel cut up) -1/2 yard
1/4 inch elastic- 12 inches
Coordinating thread

Step 1) Tracing and Cutting
Trace the pattern onto each of the 3 materials.  Cut out the pattern pieces from each of these materials 1/2 inch larger than the pattern you traced (for seam allowance).  Lay them down in this order- terry cloth on the bottom (white in this picture), flannel in the middle (black) and cotton print on top print side down and pin.

Step 2) Start Sewing
Starting on the front end (bottom in the above picture) sew on your pattern traced line.  Leave a several inch gap on the bottom to allow you to flip it right side out.  

Then trim the seam allowance to about 1/4 of an inch.  I always leave extra like this and trim later because I'm not always the greatest at sewing straight and around curves.  I like to have room for errors.
Next, around all of the curved edges, cut out wedges.  This will make the corners smoother once you flip it right side out.

Step 3)
Flip your diaper right side out by reaching inside between your print fabric and your flannel and pulling it out through the hole you left at the bottom.

Step 4) Sewing casings for elastic
At the center top of your diaper, mark out the sides of a six inch section with pins. 

Cut your 12 inches of elastic into 3, 4 inch pieces.  At the ends of each piece, attach safety pins.

Sew a straight line 3/4 of an inch from the edge of your diaper six inches long between your two pins.  Grab your elastic put it in between two of the layers of your diaper through the opening in the bottom.  Then, using your safety pins, thread it through the casing and pin it at each edge of the casing.  It will look like this.

Then sew across the ends of your elastic.  Back stitch several times.  Then remove your pins and safety pins.

Next, sew casings for the legs.  Mark a six inch space on each side of the legs area with pins and sew a 3/4 inch casing, just like you did on the back.

Thread your elastic through the same way and backstitch the ends.  Make sure to remove your pins and safety pins.  Now your diaper looks like this.

Step 5) Topstitching

Before you top stitch, check again to make sure you removed all of the safety pins from the ends of your elastic.  I broke off one of my machine needles because I forgot!

  Tuck in and pin the open end of your diaper that is where you flipped it right side out.  Then top stitch all the way around the diaper 1/2 inch or less from the edge, skipping the 3 elastic casing areas.

Now you're done, unless of course you're cooler than me and you own a snap setter.  You can add snaps or aplix/velcro to fasten the diaper.  I usually just pin them because I'm old school like that.  You can also hold it together with just a Thirsties brand PUL cover.  If you'd like, you can also make a soaker from any left-over terry cloth and flannel to make this diaper more absorbent.

Please take pictures if you make your own and share them on the Pattern Shmattern Flickr group.  I'd love to see them.  Feel free to contact me with any questions.

Front:

 Back view:

***This tutorial is for personal, non-commercial use only.  Reproduction without express permission of the author is prohibited.***

PUL Cloth Diaper Pail Liner

I finished my first, and probably last diaper pail liner.  I picked up some PUL fabric when I was in another state for Christmas at Joann's with a 50% off coupon.  For some reason the laminated side of this fabric was on the same side as the print, so it wouldn't work for diaper covers.  It does make a cute pail liner though.  This liner has an elastic edge, and I made it extra large to fit over the handles on my diaper pail.

I first measured my pail and drew out the dimensions.  I made it 3 1/2 inches taller than my pail so there would be enough to fold over the edge and 1 1/2 inches wider to allow for a 1/2 inch seam allowance and some extra room to fit over the pail handles.

Sewing it was really rough.  I clearly don't have the right equipment for my machine to handle the PUL fabric.  It would be good to have some kind of non-stick foot or some tear-away lining so it doesn't stick while you're trying to sew it.  It was a huge pain, but I'm glad that I won't have to wash my pail as often anymore.  The liner can just go in the sanitizing wash with the cloth diapers.

Christmas Diaper

We started cloth diapering when my oldest daughter was one. I went out to the store and picked up some Gerber prefold diapers and plastic pants. My mother had told me stories of trying cloth with one of my brothers. They leaked all the time, she said, and were kind of a mess. After trying out the Gerber diapers and covers, I had to agree. It was pretty awful. They didn't absorb really well and they were kind of a pain. I wondered how anyone could stick with it, but I loved saving the money. Did you know that the average cost of disposables for a child is $1600.00 for two years? My daughter wasn't potty trained until 3, so add on another 800 dollars I could save. So I did some google searching and found the world of cute cloth diapering. Diapers have come a long way from Gerber prefolds, let me tell ya.

Most of our current diaper stash is prefolds (higher-quality GreenMountainDiapers prefolds) and cute Thirsties brand covers. I have, however, splurged once on a cute designer diaper sold on hyenacart.com.

After studying how the designer diaper was made, I figured it wouldn't be really hard to make my own. Here's my very first attempt at a homemade cloth diaper. I had some leftover flannel from making these ornaments, and I had some terrycloth laying around from other projects, so I thought why not make a diaper with it?

I laid out the diaper that I had purchased and traced out a rough outline on some Christmas style flannel I had leftover from making these ornaments.

I cut a piece of terrycloth the same shape. I also cut a soaker from two layers of terrycloth and a layer of flannel.

After sewing wrong sides together, trimming the seam allowance, adding elastic on the back and legs, flipping them inside-out, and top stitching, here's what it looks like. The middle part is called a soaker, and is for extra absorbency. It is easier to dry the diaper if the diaper and soaker are separate pieces instead of making one thick diaper.

I think it only took about 1 1/2 hours to make it start to finish. Here's what it looks like on my baby.

We'll see how it holds up, but I may be making more of these. Maybe he'll have a different one for every holiday. Why not have a Thanksgiving diaper? How about a 4th of July diaper? I'm excited to come up with some new diapers to add to our collection.