I have been a diaper-making fiend this week! My friends are about to have their new baby. To prepare for the transition from disposables, they’ve switched their older daughter to cloth to get the routine down before the new baby comes. They have a few gifted name brand diapers, but liked the fit of the Sprout Snap I made for them, and asked if I’d mind making them some more. Of course I jumped and said I’d be happy to! 

I cranked these out in the past 3 days…4 Sprout Snap AI2s with snap-in soakers topped with CDMF or wicking pique, 1 Med DDU “nighttime fitted diaper” with snap in soaker, and 1 T&T Sprout Snap cover with 2 layers of PUL. Most fabric except for the minky and PUL was purchased at Goodwill. (The coffee mug fabric is an inside joke- they’ve posted all of these cute pictures of their daughter “drinking coffee” like mom on their FB pages, so when I saw that fabric I thought they’d get a kick out of it ;) )

Learning new techniques- always exciting!  AI2 shells with hidden PUL and internal gussets.  The top diaper was sewn with advice from the ladies on the Make Laugh Love forum, which I so recommend if you are interested in sewing diapers.  They are a wealth of knowledge and very generous with advice and feedback. With their help I figured out why my leg elastic has always looked wonky and uneven (compare the bottom photo to the top one).  And voila, I know how to fix that now!  As always, the top prints are recycled shirts from Goodwill. :)

This week, my friends found out they are having another girl!  They had talked to me about cloth diapers, so I decided to make them a little present.  I made four AI2 shells with hidden PUL.  All of the decorative fabric was found at Goodwill, even the luxurious cotton velour that I used to top the soakers.  I hope they like them!

Our nieces spent the night last night, and as soon as I found out they’d be coming over, I knew what I wanted to do as a craft project- clay ornaments!

My family has a tradition of choosing one special ornament each Christmas to represent your year. I love looking at the choices I made over the years (or the choices my thoughtful mom made, as I was the family Grinch for, cough, several seasons, cough.)  The other tradition we had was to make clay ornaments with the paw prints of our family pets.  As our pets have passed on, these have become even more special as a way to honor them.  Since we haven’t made ornaments yet for our cats, Ozzy and Lilly, I thought clay ornament time could serve a double purpose!

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TV stand makeover is done! Not gonna lie, I’m way more excited about the TV stand than the TV ;)

New project sneak peek…buffet-turned-TV console for our upcoming Black Friday purchase!  Full write up with reveal coming soon!

Why-oh-why are cloth diapers so fun to make?  And so satisfying and cute!  I wanted to learn how to make a new style- so these are adjustable all-in-two’s with snap-in soakers and a hidden waterproof layer. They are lined with uber soft minky. No idea if they work but they are uh-dorable.

The one on the left is a one size Sprout Snap Diaper that fits babies 14-35lbs with a three-step adjustable rise. The one on the right is Darling Diapers adjustable newborn size that fits babies 6-14lbs.

Today I’m going to show you how I make my upcycled mock gDiapers. This tutorial features a size medium.

For this project you will need:

• A large knit shirt (or knit/cotton interlock fabric)
• 1-1/4” sport knit elastic- for waistbands
• 3/8” braided elastic- for leg elastics
• Snap tape- these are compatible with the brand name liners and can be purchased here (the evenly spaced tape with 1 1/8” between each snap)
• 11” of hook and 5” of loop touchtape or velcro (I used Babyville from Joann’s)

First, go here and scroll down to the bottom of the page. Print her PDF pattern, cut out the pieces for the body and elastic casings, and tape them together. I don’t make the nylon liners, so if you don’t intend to make your own PUL liners, you don’t need to cut that part of the pattern out. If you want to learn how to make the liners, she includes it in her instructions.

You’ll need a knit shirt- preferably with 96%-100% cotton content, though any quality knit fabric could work if your baby isn’t sensitive to synthetic materials.   I found a large cotton Old Navy shirt for half off at Goodwill.  If you are able to snag a long sleeved shirt, that’s even better.  The sleeves provide extra fabric for elastic casings.  If you are hoping to make more than one diaper out of your shirt, remember that the bigger the size, the more fabric you’ll be getting, so start your fabric search in the plus size department and go down from there.

After washing and ironing your thrifty find, lay it out on your work surface.  I like to place my pattern down on it in a couple of different ways, to see how I can maximize my fabric (though for the body pieces, you do want the stretch of the fabric to be horizontal, not from front to back). Here’s a comparison of my small pattern and the medium pattern on the shirt.

Next you need to take your shirt apart.  I cut as close as I can to

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First two upcycled faux gDiapers are complete! These are a custom size between the S and M size brand name ones, and are compatible with the nylon gLiners. I have 3 more cut out and ready to sew.  

I’m going to try using snaps on the next one instead of velcro.  I really dislike cutting and sewing the velcro.  I can’t ever get the corners rounded perfectly, and it makes my sewing machine very grumpy.  I attempted a snap diaper last night and it was pretty sad looking. I attached the snaps only to one thin layer of cotton interlock, they would have pulled right off the diaper in two changes. I’ll try it again with reinforcement. I won’t have time to sew for a few days though…le sigh.

An hour and a half ago, this was a sweater.

Excuse the bad picture, but I had to share…the first of my upcycled Goodwill shirt cloth diapers!  Shawn felt it and said “It’s like a luxury diaper”.  I had ordered some black cotton velour which I used to make the leg elastic casings- it looks slick against the black and teal.  The fabric is stellar quality.  After cutting up one of the smaller shirts, I can get three diaper cuts up to size medium out of one shirt, plus all of the elastic casings.  It’s impressive. This is an in-between size for my friend Jane to try out on Monsieur Carter :)

ZOMG- best. idea. ever.  Make faux gDiapers from recycled ladies knit shirts!  These were all XL cotton shirts with the half off barb at Goodwill.  They cost $2.50 each and I can probably get 2-3 cloth diapers out of every shirt, depending on what size I’m making.  Similar cotton interlock knit fabrics online retail for $12-$18 a yard! I am so tickled right now.

For the most part I have had a very lazy weekend. I cranked out two orders of unpaper towels, grocery shopped and cooked, and other than that, I’ve done absolutely nothing. I’m getting that spineless jellyfish feeling that comes from 3 days of sitting/laying on the couch.

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MOAR unpaper towels!  This time, a custom order for my dude’s coworker’s gentleman.  I believe I succeeded in finding the only manly cupcake fabric in Southern Maine- win for KP! This set, another one, plus a quilt and various other projects have me up to my elbows in textiles.  Life is good :)

New custom set of unpaper towels for my friend in Iowa!  As soon as I said I wasn’t going to start selling these, I now have 2 orders for them, lol.  Might as well go with it!