As you all know, I’ve been dappling with the idea of making cloth diaper covers for awhile. Many months ago, I purchased some clearance pink PUL fabric from Jo-Ann’s. When I saw it, I didn’t really like it but figured it was only $7 for a yard and I’d be able to make at least 2 or 3 covers from it, so it was worth not really liking it. As I’ve said many times before, I’m a pretty novice sewer so after purchasing the fabric, I chickened out. That, and I couldn’t afford to buy a snap press (I didn’t know about plier ones) and I’m not a big fan of Velcro/Aplix on diapers. Thus, it’s been sitting in my closet. In my last post, I told you about finding some great tutorials and patterns on-line to make covers and they honestly seemed pretty easy. So, I took a dive and purchased 5 different print fabrics for Harrison, a plier snap press (which is much, much cheaper), snaps, and fold-over elastic (FOE). I really think the FOE is what sold me on being able to make them. I made a few fitted diapers for Trin awhile back but really disliked working with the elastic in the legs and back. I just couldn’t seem to get it tacked down enough or if I did, I then sewed over it when trying to make the casing. Anyway, I found a great tutorial at Very Baby on how to use FOE and it was specific to finishing diapers. I have to be honest and say that I really like the finished look that FOE offers, more so than using matching PUL fabric.
While waiting for my supplies to arrive, I figured I should practice and could with the other PUL. I read a lot of articles and such on the benefits of using Mama Cloth and thought it would be a great way to learn the ropes of using a different type of fabric and sewing needle. I didn’t get any pictures during the process but it was honestly really simple to make. I’m not sure yet how much I like this particular pattern but we’ll see how it works out. It also gave me a chance to figure out how to use the snap pliers. Here’s the finished product:
I used an old, soft receiving blanket for the top (closest to your body).
The ugly, pink PUL fabric.
I’m really thinking if I truly switch, I’ll tweak this pattern some (I like the pocket-style opening for customizing absorbency). It seems a tad thin on the ends. More on that later though. Moving on to diaper covers…
I found the PUL fabrics and FOE at Diaper Sewing Supplies. This site has an amazing assortment of print and solid color PUL as well as everything you need to make any type of diaper, wipe, or insert, and it’s very reasonably priced. Here’s what I found and purchased for Harrison:
After looking at my assortment of fabrics, I decided to use white FOE for finishing, instead of purchasing matching colors. I think they’ll really “pop” with the white. After doing some research on snap pliers, I decided to go with KAM brand. They offer an incredible assortment of snap colors (over 100 I think?) plus, I found a great deal from GotLux Snaps through Amazon that included the pliers, extra dies for different sized snaps, and 500 sets of snaps that I could choose the colors. The reviews on this particular brand were really high versus some of the others I was looking into. I got green, red, navy, black, and white so they’ll match all the fabrics I have.
Today was the day that I decided to go for it! I started with the black and white safari print (very bottom right fabric in the pic above). I used BrambleStitches free sized pattern in newborn. I started by cutting one piece but realized afterwards that I’d have to sew those two pieces together down the middle and was concerned about wicking. So I went and printed a second copy and taped everything together so I could have one continuous piece of fabric.
Next, I decided on snap placement. The newborn size front flap is 9 1/2″ inches across so I divided that in half and moved an inch to the side for the first snap. I did 3 additional snaps to allow for growing room, each an inch closer to the edge. Since I’m using 1″ FOE, I placed the snaps 1″ down from the top:
I repeated the same on the other side, with a total of 8 snaps. I may put another row below to account for wing droop but want to see what Harrison’s shape will be before I do that.
Next comes doing the FOE. I started by placing it at the front left wing and went all the way around. This was my first time working with it so it was a little tricky but became easier to work with as I went on. Once the FOE is around the entire length of the diaper, all that needs to be done is to put the final snaps on the back wings. I placed one towards the edge of each wing and another 2″ in from that. And that’s it! One newborn cover – check!
That’s all I’ve got for today so until next time, much love and many blessings!
♥Courtney♥
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I made two changes with these covers. The first was the starting point of the FOE. Instead of starting on the back wing, I started on the right front wing, went all the way around to the left front wing, and tacked down the ends. I used a separate piece of FOE for the top part of the wing. The second change I made was adding a gather on the left front wing. I very much love my Thirsties Duo Snap Wrap covers for Love Bug and one of my favorite features of those is the gathering along the front top wing.
On My Needles 