Diaper Sewing for the newbie

A few years ago when I started cloth diapering, I started sewing some of my own. I loved it. 

After a while, it became too much to keep up with sewing, caring for 4 kids, carrying the twins, moving into a new home and blah blah blah.

So I put away my diaper sewing stuff and went on about my life. 

My husband is amazing, and supports all of my crafty habits, even when they seem to be nuts. In 2013 when I decided to sew all of the kids Easter outfits on my old sewing machine, he supported that crazy endeavor. And when he saw how much fun I was having, he bought me a new machine for my birthday!

Some may consider it to be an appliance and therefore a "no-no" of gift giving but it's awesome, I love it, and I love him for thinking of it. 

I've been sewing tons of stuff since I got it. 

Napkins

Blankets

All sorts of clothes for my kids:

And so much more!

Since baby #7 is on his way, I knew he'd have his fair share (and then some) of mommy made stuff. Especially since he is expected to make his arrival in the summer, and my normal crochet hobby seems to be more of a winter thing. 

I've made some clothing items, and have more cut out. But when I won a gift certificate to This awesome fabric store! I knew I would use it for diaper fabrics.

This baby will be in cloth, just like the 4 who came before him. And what is cuter than newborn diapers? Nothing.

I chose two fabrics: Adorable! and Squishy!
Which together are the perfect diaper combo. Cute and functional

For my first diaper, I opted for a QSFW, which is also called a Daddy Flat.
I love these diapers, they are easy to make, easy to use, wash and dry quickly, and fit a variety of weights and sizes. If you leave them closure-less, you can snappi them which leaves you a lot of room for flexibility. 
They do need a cover, so be prepared.

Pattern is here: QSFW pattern

I chose to do the smallest NB size as I have small babies, and I think we will get a ton of usage out of this size. The pattern is very simple, cut one layer of each fabric, I did one layer of sherpa and one of the knit. 

Then it's a simple pin right sides together, stitch around, leave a hole for turning, turn and top stitch. 

There are variations that call for elastic, or snaps/velcro, or even a stay dry fabric. Someone has even made it an AIO by using fleece or PUL for the outer layer. I went simple and made a regular plain flat.

When it's all done, you fold the wings to the middle, and pin or snappi around the baby. Easy Peasy.

For a newborn, this layering will be fine, once the wings are folded in, it's 3 layers of sherpa and 3 of knit. Fine for a newbie.

I made an over night version with two layers of sherpa. This will have increased absorbency for over nights, when you go longer between changings. 

I have some covers cut out to sew, which will work wonderfully over these. 
I can't wait to see the tiny little fluffy bum of my new little guy!

A new favorite?

Today I wanted to talk about a new diaper I have discovered, that is in close running with my Thirsties AIO to be a favorite; the Diaper Rite All In One One size diaper.

   I admit to being a bit of a “lazy” diaperer. I need the easiest and fastest way to change diapers; I have 2 year old twins who quickly lose their patience for folding and pinning. We need easy on easy off. So I looked at All in ones. I had done pockets before, but after 4 years and 5 kids, I was so over stuffing pockets. I know it doesn’t take that long, but honestly it was longer than I wanted to spend doing it.

  All in ones seemed like a great choice, but can be very costly, especially when you are diapering more than one child. So I went on the hunt for an economical choice to test them out before I took the plunge.

  I had tried the Imagine bamboo AIO and while I liked them, I had issues. My children are sensitive to wetness, so I needed to add a liner to them. And the Velcro wasn’t lasting long. My issue with snaps on the    Imagine diaper is that I need crossover snaps, not something offered by a lot of diapers. Hip snaps are a must to prevent wing droop, and my kids are petite in the hips, so cross over it a must.

   I had some Diaper Rite covers, so I was poking around on http://www.diaperjunction.com/ to see what they carried in the way of all in ones. Lo and behold, they made their own. And it was affordable. I ordered on Black Friday and paid $8.95 each, but even full price was only $11.95. Can’t beat that. So I bought 2 to test out, if it didn’t work, no biggie.

   They arrived and I was skeptical at first, they seemed thin. But I liked the design. I love the front flap to hold the insert in; it’s great for preventing leaks for tummy sleepers. The insert doesn’t require any special folding to work.

   My twins are on the second rise setting at 2 years old and 21ish pounds. The insert fits beautifully in the diaper, and the flap holds any excess. The hip snaps give me a secure fit on the thighs without being so tight as to cause marks or pain. The cross over snaps allow for a great fit at the waist. Even when I add a doubler for bed time, I can let out the waist a bit and still have an amazing fit. I have tested these out on my 34lb 3 ½ year old, and they fit him as well. He’s potty trained, so I did not try them for function, but I would imagine they would work wonderfully as they do for the younger ones as well.

   These diapers have lasted overnight with an extra insert, nap time by themselves, and day time wear as if it were nothing. Hands down the best OS diaper I have owned. Easy to put on, easy to wash and care for. Great fit, great absorbency. Fantastic all the way around.

   The company has halted production to revamp the design a bit, I am holding out hope they don’t change any of the things I love, but I cannot wait to try the new ones. And I hope beyond hope that they will release a newborn size as well. 

I adore my Thirsties AIO and between those and my few DRAIO, they are the first diapers to get used out of the wash. It's a tough call as to which is my one and only favorite, I am not sure I can pick just one. 

Stay tuned for a review of the Thirsties AIO.

The Dryer Bar and cloth diapers

  So I've been cloth diapering since 2010, and have diaper 4 1/2 children. I say 4 1/2 because when I started using cloth, one of the kids was only in night time diapers. So she counts as the 1/2. I have diapered my 2 boys and my twin girls. And will cloth diaper baby #7 when he arrives this summer.

  I am by no means an expert, in fact I swear things change every few months, but I do have a reasonable amount of experience with cloth diapers. I have tried every type out there that I am aware of.
I love cloth diapers for several reasons, many of which I will talk about at some point here, while giving you my thoughts on all of them. Aren't you excited? I know I am.

  Having spent 4 years washing and using cloth, I thought I knew how to follow the rules. And I do. I never dry my PUL covers except on low, even my pockets I treated this way. I followed the rules. Day in and day out, followed the laundry rules.
But last week I pulled my covers out of the dryer and discovered this:

  Those are scrape marks on my PUL. Oh my stars I almost fell over! They aren't burns, I know the dryer was not too hot, it was on air dry no heat. I frantically searched to see if I had washed a snappi. Nope. Nothing. Queue minor (ok major, I love my cloth diapers) freak out and panic. I quickly emailed these two companies to see if they had any insight as to what I'd done wrong. No one had any idea, they believed, as I did, that I had followed all of their rules, and my covers should be fine. I wasn't looking for them to replace them, just ideas.

  I had pined over this FLIP cover in Albert for a year. Seriously. A year. Finally with a BOGO sale I bought two for the twins. And had used it less than a handful of times, only to see this. Ugh.

  I went back to my dryer to beg for answers. I opened it and closed it several times, I checked and rechecked all of the settings. I did everything I could think of, including ask it why it felt the need to attack my pretties.

  And then I saw it. Mocking me. My dryer bar. Faithfully I removed it every laundry day and set it above the dryer, so as not to risk fabric softener interfering with the absorbency of my diapers. This is a big no-no in the CD world. Everyone says remove the bar. Remove the bar. Remove the bar. I had done that. Every time I washed. But what no one said, was remove the bar holder. Because you can't.

  The beauty of the dryer bar system is that the holder stays inside the dryer at all times. And is in fact, horrific to try and take off. Awful. It doesn't come off, that is the point.

  That wondrous invention, that thing that made the act of using a dryer sheet obsolete, had ruined my diapers. As the covers tumbled around, on low or no heat as directed, they brushed up against the empty holder. Complete with protruding areas, that are not sharp, but do scrape nonetheless. And slowly, these areas has scraped away the waterproof layer of my PUL covers, and I would later discover that it had done the same thing to my wet bags. I could cry.

  I realize that sounds crazy, but I love my diapers. I've prided myself on diapering my kids cheaply for all these years. For not having tossed anything out until it had reached the end of it's life. And here I had hastened that life to come to an end, over something as insane as not using a dryer sheet! Oh the humanity!

  Thankfully these areas are small, and if the proper diaper is used  inside the covers, they don't leak, so they are still in the rotation for the time being. But I know I will have no choice but to toss them out when the time comes.

  I have yet to remove the dryer bar, as I said above, it is impossible. So for now, anything with PUL gets hung to dry. No dryer time at all. I can't deal with another heartbreaking PUL scrape.

  Learn from my mistake! If you have a dryer bar, hang all PUL. It may take longer to dry, but you will not suffer the heartache I have suffered.

  Just to make myself feel better, here is a picture of my twins wearing some adorable diapers.