sewing diapers

a little hand sewn pocket dipe.

So, to put it out there my diapering baby butts days are numbered (for now, of course - insert winky face guy - and I still haven’t done the potty training plunge, next month.) and my sewing machine is broken (WAH!) but…I wanted to put some resources out there for those of you who are entering into this big ole fun thing called mommyhood soon and are interested in sewing some dipes.

Sewing diapers is really kinda fun. It’s creative. It’s cheap. And once you know what you are doing you can finish a pocket diaper in 45 minutes. The perfect project for the busy/impatient mommy.

Basically this is what you need to know:

- http://www.sewingdiapers.com/  Seriously a great website. It has the picture by picture tutorials that I would do for you all, had I a sewing machine that worked. ALAS.

- materials. This is the tricky part. You can’t just buy the right kind of fabrics at JoAnn Fabric. You need PUL, which is a waterproof fabric, some good fleece (Malden Mills is great) and some kind of absorbent terry cloth or hemp fabric for the inserts, if you are doing pocket diapers. There are sites online where you can order these things. I was given a few pieces of PUL for my first few diapers and then bought some from an ad I found on Craigslist (a woman who sews diapers professionally was getting rid of excess material – I bought PUL, really nice fleece, bamboo velour - for fitted diapers - and some wool jersey - for a pull on wool cover and wool overalls) You can use lots of things to do make diapers cheaply however. Old fleece blankets do work. You can use jersey wool to make a cover, reclaimed from some old clothes. You can use doubled up fleece too for a cover. Washclothes work as inserts, folded and sewn in thirds. I cut up all kinds of old clothes to make diapers back in the day. (Some more successfully than others!)

- Tips. First go look at that website. Especially this page.  Ok. You back? She used to layers of fleece (in which you don’t even need PUL fabric) to make her pocket dipe. You can of course do one layer fleece and one PUL. But, rather than use colored PUL to make cute pocket dipes I take a cute print (flannel works really well) and cut it out and use it as the final layer. So, basically you have 1) print 2) PUL and then 3) fleece. You then sew the PUL and print layers together (treating them as one layer) and have the fleece be the other layer to form the pocket. Another great tip, to sew in the leg elastic - PLEASE use this trick - sew one end of the elastic in place, then the other end, and then stretch it out and sew into place. SO MUCH EASIER than trying to stretch it all into place and sew at the same time.

Ok.

Are you totally lost?

I even kind of am.

Shoot.

I need to sew a dipe to show you all what I mean. Ok. Will do so (SEW, HA.) soon.

In any case. This can help you for now to get things started.

(Oooh, looking through baby pics to find photos of diapered butts makes me totally get a baby itch...so tiny, so sweet...so sedentary... HA.)