On Making Cloth Diapers

Hello fellow crafters and craft lovers. I am excited because I have a new granddaughter and I made diapers for her. I must be getting old as making something so simple never excited me before. I am a person who has tailored complicated coats, made wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses, prom dresses, etc. Those are projects to really get the old creative juices going! The reason I wanted to make diapers in the first place was the ones my daughter seems to like the best cost as much as $20 per diaper. In my day you wanted at least 2 dozen diapers or more to start with. Pricey!

While perusing the Internet to know where to start, I discovered that cloth diapers are a pretty big industry; both ready made and making supplies. I needed a pattern and had several choices. For me choice is a bad thing as I tend to over think everything. First, what kind of diaper should I make? There are prefolds, fitted pocket diapers that you stuff, all-in-one fitted diapers that have a built in cover, fitted diapers without the built in cover; both come in sizes so you have to have new ones when the baby out grows them. If you make diapers without the built in covers, then you make separate covers. Whew! I'm tired just thinking about all of this. Who was it that thought making diapering so complicated was a good idea?

Then which pattern to buy, what fabric to use? More choices to confuse. There is Jalie's diaper pattern. Kwik Sew's pattern, see picture below, Babyville Boutique has a whole line of diaper projects, fabrics and labels for cloth diaper enthusiasts, and fabric.com has diaper central with several choices of fabric for your diaper making projects. To make what could be an endless story shorter, I chose Kwik Sew"s pattern, and bought 6 yards of fabric.com's diaper flannel, and 2 yards of PUL waterproof knit fabric. Other supplies needed were 1 1/2 inch Velcro, and swimwear elastic.

 It has an all-in-one fitted diaper with built in cover, a fitted diaper, a separate diaper cover and diaper bags made with the waterproof  PUL for storage until washday. As stated earlier, I went on fabric.com and bought 6 yards of 28 inch wide 100% cotton diaper flannel because it seamed like the right fabric for the job. Some fitted diapers these days are made of fleece which I just can't wrap my mind around for diapers (too synthetic). With all the components that go into fitted style diapers, I can see why they are $20 each! I'm beginning to see the wisdom in buying the ready made variety. But with all the supplies gathered and a little time investment, I accomplished making the all-in-ones in newborn size, and at the rate she is growing, they should last about 3 weeks. See the pictures and explanations of some of the steps below.

Kwik Sew patterns are multi sized, and printed on paper (not tissue pattern paper) so I always trace the size I want on pattern paper.

The small pattern piece on the left is for the extra padding for the middle of the diaper. I cut 2 layers of the flannel because it is kind of thin and four of the middle sections so that the middle will be 6 layers thick. (still seems thin to me). I also cut one layer of the PUL waterproof fabric. The middle sections were sewed together first, then placed and sewed onto the 2 layers of flannel.

next I layered the PUL and sewed the elastic to the seam allowances. The layered picture is below the elastic one. Having a few issues with picture placement in my blogs lately.

 After I trimmed all of the corners and turned the diaper to the right side, I just had to top stitch and add 1 1/2 inch Velcro and voila! Finished! The Kwik Sew pattern uses velcro as fasteners, but some other patterns use snaps. Snaps won't catch in the laundry like Velcro does.

I also made a few prefold diapers and they make way more sense to me for 2 reasons. First you only need flannel or diaper fabric of your choosing to make them. No PUL, Velcro, elastic, etc. is required ( it adds significantly to the cost of making the diaper). Next prefolds last from birth to potty training; you just fold them to fit the baby's size. The down side of making prefolds is The flannel fabric I chose is $3.98 per yard at fabric.com ( it takes a whole yard to make one diaper) and you can buy them for about a dollar each. So you would choose to make them why? Anyway here is the picture of the prefold I made. Instructions for making prefolds came from Sew & Go Baby Gear Book of 30 great baby projects. Doesn't look like much online, but I think it turned out quite wonderful.

 

I hope if you are considering making diapers the this info will be of some help to you. Happy Sewing Sewists!!!