The Cloth Diaper Craze ... I've Begun My Journey ... Have You?

So, I am slightly amused but mostly intrigued by the revival and revamping of cloth diapers lately. I remember the cloth diapers that my mother and aunts used on my cousins and I when we were little. They were cumbersome and awkward to fold, often leaked, and had to be pinned in place with large safety pins and further waterproofed with a layer of plastic pants on top of the diaper. Who would want to go back to that?! That was my thought when I first heard about cloth diapers being offered again. But, wow, have they ever changed! Not only do they work so much better, but they are also much easier to use and a thousand times cuter than the old ones.

I have read hundreds of website pages describing how to make just as many different variations of cloth diapers. A lot of them have you start with a disposable diaper that fits your baby well and then use that as a pattern for cutting out the new cloth diaper. I don't have a baby yet, so I don't really keep a supply of baby diapers around the house. Plus, I will be the first one to tell you that pattern making is not my forte. I sew really well, but creating a pattern from scratch has always been a bit of a challenge for me. So, when I spotted a book devoted entirely to making cloth diapers at Joann Fabrics and Crafts, it was the perfect solution.

The book is called Cloth Diapers Made Easy by Babyville Boutique. It has 10 different diaper designs in it as well as a couple of different deigns/ideas for how to do the soakers for the diapers. Each diaper design is discussed, and the author goes step-by-step through how to make each with pictures illustrating each stage of construction. The book also comes with the diaper patterns in four sizes for you to cut out and use. No drafting your own pattern!

The Babyville Boutique brand also offers a wide variety of PUL (waterproof) fabrics, color coordinated snaps and velcro, lining fabrics, decorative appliques, and tools that will all work together to make your diaper making easier and more successful. All of these supplies are available at Joann's as well. In my Joann's store they have all of the Babyville Boutique items in their own special area. NOTE: The picture shows the pre-cut sets of fabric, but you can also buy the PUL fabrics by the yard.

So, I bought the book, a scrap piece of PUL fabric, a piece of coordinating scrap fabric for a lining, some matching velcro, and a package of elastic to see how hard it would be to make one of these new diapers. There are a lot of different designs listed in the book, but for the first one, I decided to go with a pretty basic, straightforward design. I decided to make a velcro closure, pocket-style diaper with hidden elastic. What that means is there will be an opening in the back of the diaper along with waistband for you to insert the soaker into the diaper shell. I like this design because it allows for you to adjust the thickness/absorbency as well as placement of the soaker for children who wet heavier or lighter, for nighttime versus daytime, and for boys versus girls. The reason I decided to do hidden elastic was just a familiarity and economic decision. I am very familiar with sewing casings for elastic, and the pretty, coordinating  fold-over elastic that you will see on the outside edge of many cloth diapers is rather expensive. Using standard elastic allowed me to save some money in the end, so that's what I did.

The whole process of making this style diaper was pretty easy. The pattern was simple, and the directions were easy to follow. The book even has a little chart in the front to help you estimate the correct length of your elastic pieces for the waist and legs based on the age of the baby who will be wearing the diaper. That was a really handy thing to have access to. I wish I had taken more pictures during the construction of the diaper, but I was so focused on making it correctly that I forgot. I plan to go through and make examples of each type of diaper design in the book, so I will definitely take more pictures next time. I do have a picture of the finished product however.

... To Be Continued ...