Practical & Conscientious Parenting
Posts tagged cloth diapers
Terry Fleece Diaper Doublers
15 years
by Zach
in Creative Projects
When we told people that we wanted to use cloth diapers, we got a lot of support, and also a lot more props than we deserve. I think, especially with older generations, that people think about desperately trying to safely pin a diaper on a wriggling little bottom. But with the amazing diapers that people have come out with these days, it’s really not hard at all. And fortunately for me, Anne had already done a lot of the research and trial & error with Mehalia, so we had a great resource for any questions we had.
So far, everything is going great with Edie in cloth diapers. We’ve had a couple of blowouts, mainly because she’s just so tiny still and it’s hard to get the diaper covers around her legs. One of the best things in our diaper collection has been our terry fleece doublers. They really wick away moisture and keep Edie dry. And they were really easy to make.
We had a couple of doublers that Anne had given us that we used as a template. The fabric store we went to only had a couple of bad colors of terry cloth, so we bought a yard of white terry and dyed it ourselves using iDye. And there are so many cool cotton fleece prints these days, we just picked out two that we really liked and bought half a yard of each.
The sewing was a snap, though it would have been even snappier if we owned a serger sewing machine (which we seriously contemplated buying). But not owning a serger, I learned how to use a finishing stitch that I didn’t even realize our sewing machine had. Ashley traced the outline of the doubler we had on the fleece, and loosely pinned it to the terry cloth. She sewed a straight stitch about half an inch to the inside of the line she drew, and then she cut along the line. She was a little nervous about doing the finishing, so that’s where I stepped in. There were places where I got a little too close to the edge, but all in all they turned out great, and we love having so many of them. It was really a lot easier than I thought to do a project I used to think was only possible with a serger.
Angel Baby Bottom Balm
15 years
A friend of ours gave us a container of Angel Baby Bottom Balm at our baby shower, and we love it. We took it to the hospital with us, but we didn’t use it right away. I had never seen meconium before, and frankly, I was surprised at just how sticky and tar-like it was. We had a tough time cleaning Edie up the first couple of diapers, and then Ashley decided to put it the Angel Baby Bottom Balm on her, and wow! What a difference. She was a ton easier to wipe clean. Now that she’s moved on to breast milk poop, it’s not as tricky to get her cleaned up, but we’re still using it off and on to help keep her from getting too chapped. We haven’t had much in the way of diaper rash (the fleece doublers we’re using help keep her really dry), but when Edie does get a little red, this balm does the trick.
Cloth Baby Wipes
15 years
by Zach
in Creative Projects
Zig-zag stitching down each side of the pencil line
Anne had a couple of twin sized organic cotton sheets that she didn’t want any more, and she suggested we use them to make baby wipes. We took her up on her advice, and I couldn’t be more pleased with the results. It was a really quick and easy project, and a great way to re-purpose old sheets.
The sheets were both fitted, one was jersey knit and the other was standard weave. Ashley took a seam ripper to the corners as best she could, but we ended up losing a bit of fabric anyway. Looking around online, I found some other cloth wipes that were 8 1/2″ squares. I decided to measure them out to 9″ square because I have big hands and I knew the jersey sheets were going to curl a bit at the edges. Between the two sheets we were able to make 64 cloth baby wipes!
Cutting between the stitches.
I started by marking out a grid on the sheet, with four long columns divided into seven boxes on the sides and nine in the middle (I wasn’t able to use the parts where the corners had been). Since I knew I’d be cutting along the pencil lines, I made two wide zig-zag stitches on either side of the line, starting with the long lines.
After I had all the long lines stitched, I sewed the cross lines, making sure to double back every time I crossed a long line to help secure the stitches after cutting the wipes apart. Then it was just a matter of cutting along all the pencil lines. I actually found it easier to cut off the first half once I had all the stitches done for it so that I didn’t have to keep shifting around the whole sheet.
And since we’ve been dying a bunch of diapers lately, we through the wipes in, too, to add some color. They turned out great! I like the standard weave wipes the best because they lay flat and they feel the softest. But I think the jersey knit wipes will hold up longer. We’ll see….