Mike took the kids to the Children’s and Science Discovery Museums in Acton on Saturday and I had a quiet morning at home. It’s amazing how much I can done without two toddlers underfoot! I decided it was the perfect occasion to tackle my fear of sewing cloth diapers. I decided to start off with Shar’s free (for home use) newborn diaper pattern off of The Nappy Network. It’s designed to be a pocket diaper, but I decided to just turn it into a fleece cover instead. I have plenty of prefolds to stuff it with, and covers are slightly easier to sew than pockets.
I had some soft purple fleece left over from making Emma this jacket and some velcro from making crayon rolls, so I didn’t have to purchase any materials for this project.
Here are the pattern pieces with the velcro pinned on:
And here the pieces are sewn together and the elastic has been added:
I was really confused about how to add the elastic (it’s different from adding elastic to, say, shorts) until I found this Youtube video. Hooray for Youtube!
After adding the elastic I turned it right side out and hand-stitched the opening I had left for turning. I was originally going to topstitch it, but I liked the way it looked without the topstitching and so left it that way. Making this took 20 minutes tops after all of my drama over being intimidated by cloth diapers, and I definitely plan to make more! Many thanks to my online friends (especially Ally) for inspiring me to try this project! Now I just need my baby girl to arrive so I can test how well this diaper works!
MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
It looks very cute and comfy!
Awesome! It looks great!
great job on the cloth diaper! i've made some before and it ends up being a lot of fun.. even the hard elastic part lol ;)
Thanks everyone for all your nice comments! I can't wait to try this out on our baby girl, and I think I might try a cover large enough to fit Johnny now…
@Amber – great to know that laying in prefolds and inserts works, even with wriggly babies :)
Wow, looks great! I'm so glad you decided to go ahead and try making diapers, because this is so fab!!
Way to go!!
Congratulations :-) It looks great–have you tried it out yet?
That turned out great.
you are so talented! That is so cute!
Wow, that looks great! I'm almost tempted to try, but that elastic, even after watching a couple youtube videos, is really scaring me :)
I have a couple covers that fit snugly that I just trifold prefold diapers for Ingrid, they work just fine for a wriggly walking baby. Also, I have just laid in an insert from her Fuzzibunz and it works fine too.
@Ally – I'm hoping that this cover fits snugly enough that I can just trifold the insert inside of a cover for a newborn at least. I don't currently own any snappis or pins, so if laying it in the cover doesn't work I'll have to buy one or the other. I'm guessing securing the insert is more important for older, more wriggly babies.
Ohhhhh that looks so pretty, love the purple!
You did it! I KNEW you could!
Told you the elastic was the hardest part for me too, thanks for the video link. Oh and I dont think I've been to the nappy network, was the pattern easy to follow?
Do you pin your prefolds or use a Snappi? Or do you trifold it inside of a cover?
Gorgeous! So soft and fuzzy. :) You'll love using it.
Hey! That did turn out really well! Am glad you got time to sew without the smalls around (lucky you!) – always helpful when tackling a new project. Have a great week, MaryAnne!