If I told you that I recently had the joy of meeting an old friend again online, you might think I was talking about someone I found on Facebook maybe? Well, no. The 'friend' in question was actually a tutorial for making cloth nappies that I used almost four years ago when I sewed my first batch of cloth nappies for my then three month-old baby Sweetpea!
I remember really liking the idea of soft, 100% cotton nappies on that sweet little baby bum, as opposed to the paper-and-plastic variety filled with all kinds of chemicals. So one Saturday afternoon I googled 'cloth diaper tutorials', found a few, and, using an old bed sheet and and old towel, made three nappies using different tutorials. One was too narrow between the legs, and the other one had a removable soaker pad, which was just too much trouble.
But the third was just right!!
Sweetpea wore those cloth nappies until she was toilet trained. And then ArrowBoy arrived and he wore them, and they would have even seen little Baby Rosebud through, if it hadn't had been that I met a lady who had fallen on hard times and needed them more than we did.
But then one day just after Rosebud's birth, that same tutorial found its way onto my Pinterest page, and we were happily reunited!! The result was a fresh batch of cotton nappies for our sweet baby girl!
To make these I use flannel for the outside and a stretch knit for the inside (what we call 'tracksuiting' here in SA!) I buy my fabric at shops that sell large off-cuts by weight. For the soaker pads that are sewn inside, I use either old towels or old toweling nappies (ask a few friends to keep their old towels for you when they clear out their linen cupboards!) The soaker pads are basically 3 layers of towelling which I sew together using my overlocker/serger, and which then get sewn onto the inside of the nappy.
The tutorial I used, and most others you can find on the Internet, shows you how to sew on velcro to fasten the nappies with. But because we had used our nappies so much, I found that the velcro eventually got so worn that I had to replace it - a real pain!. So this time around I adjusted the pattern a bit and used toweling patches that I sewed onto the outside of the nappy, so that I could use a Snappy fastener to keep it all together! I just cut the patches from a piece of toweling, overlocked the edges, and then sewed them onto the flannel.
A nice, snug fit!
* I find that 24 nappies is a good number to have
* I buy thin, inexpensive nappy liners that I put in the nappy before putting on baby. This reduces soiling, and they can be flushed.
* Waterproof pants fit nicely over the nappy to keep baby's clothes dry.
* I have a large plastic bin with a flip-up lid next to the changing table. Soiled and wet nappies go in there until they are ready to be washed. I soak dirty nappies in hot water with a scoop of SterriNappi, and then launder as usual.
The tutorial I use can be found here.
It is featured on a website called Diaper Sewing.com - click here to visit this site, which has many, many FREE tutorials for just about any style of nappy you can imagine, including cloth menstrual pads.
There is a brilliant post called Diaper Sewing 101 on Sew, Mama, Sew. If you consider using cloth nappies at all, this will be a good place to start reading!
