Swim Diaper Tutorial Review and Tips

We are now entering the swim season and I have been getting out my swim diapers and complaining about how I would make them better.  It finally occurred to me that I could probably make my own swim diaper (better late than never) since I have made a bunch of reusable diapers for my girls already.  I searched online and pretty much the only tutorial out there for swim diapers is the Aquarius Swimmer.  I printed out and followed the pattern provided and found that the small fits my girls perfectly.  If you are sewing something yourself you have so many options to customize so here are some tips, tricks and changes that I made to the pattern/tutorial.

 

 

 

1.  I only used 3 layers, PUL on the outside and Athletic Whicking Jersey (AWJ) on the inside.  I but all of my diaper supplies from Diaper Sewing Supplies. 

2.  Before applying my FOE I did a baste stitch to tack together my PUL and AWJ.  This helped make sure that  it didn't move around when applying the FOE and also helped to make sure that the FOE caught both sides of the material.

3.  I cut the extended tabs per the pattern for both layers of material.  I then didn't not put FOE on either of the ends (just along the front, back, and both legs) and folded all 4 ends down to reinforce for the snaps. 

4.  I like having a little flexibility so I added a second (or third) row of snaps.  That way you can adjust to whatever baby you are putting it on and it can also grow with them a little bit.
5. I don't think this is actually necessary but in my swim diaper reviews I noted that they all had a layer of light absorbency added. By making your own you have control over adding none or a little bit to help with small accidents.

After  making my first one I cut the pattern a little larger for a seam allowance and turned and top stitched the second one and used regular braided elastic.  I added elastic not only at the legs but also at the front and back of the diaper to help keep things in.  I think both versions will work well and I didn't like the the FOE gets pulled from the pavement.

 

Overall I thought this was a great pattern.  I made it for my daughters to just wear with a sun shirt.  I love that its not super bulky for my girls and that it is so easy.  I will be making a few more of these!

Day 3: DIY Flats and Covers

Today is day three of Dirty Diaper Laundry's Flats and Handwashing Challenge.  Today is an open topic day and this wouldn't be a crafting blog if I didn't cover some ways that you can DIY your flats and cover stash.  I purchased (or borrowed) a lot of the items I am using for the challenge but if you want to save some money you could easily sew a lot of items yourself. 

 

Flats

You can turn almost any absorbent materials into a flat!  Old Cotton or Flannel sheets can be easily cut up into the desired size (27x27 inches is standard) and then turn under the edge and sew or serge the edges.  Diaper Sewing Supplies sews beautiful bamboo terry material that would make soft and luxurious flats (I use the bamboo terry for all the diaper inserts I make).  In a pinch you can also cut the arms and neck off of a T-shirt and have two flats.  The beauty of the T-shirt flats is that they don't require any sewing to finish the edges because the material won't fray.  One of the things that I did DIY for the challenge is "half flats" (I just made up this name).  I wanted something that I could use as a doubler without having the bulkiness of actually using a second flat so I cut some of the flats that I had in half, serged the edges and they have worked great so far as doublers.

 

Covers

 

After buying some covers and not being thrilled with the choices I decided to make some of my own.  I used a free pattern that I found online that included front snaps as well as front and back flaps to hold my pad folded flats in place.  The tutorial and pattern are actually really good and I made two covers out of PUL that I had already.  These covers are now my favorite out of the 7 covers that I have.  For each cover they took approximately 1.5 hours to complete and cost me about $8 each. 

 

Accessories

Some of the accessories that I either had or made for the challenge included cloth wipes and fleece liners.  I love using cloth wipes and I make mine with one side terry cloth and one side flannel.  These so far have been easy to handwash but they are very slow to dry since they are thick.  If I was making wipes just for handwashing I would probably just do one layer of terry cloth and serge the edges.  I normally use disposable diapers on my daughters at night but in preparation for the Challenge and my Flats trial I actually started using my flats on them at night.  Because I didn't want them to feel the wetness for 12 hours at night while sleeping I cut some fleece liners.  I have micro fleece remnants from making diapers and I just cut them large enough so that I can wrap them around a pad folded flat. 

These are my favorite DIY crafts for the challenge and I like most of them so much I plan on using them as part of my regular stash even after the challenge.