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….