I keep coming up with more sewing projects that I typically don't finish for months, but fortunately, most get done eventually. Its more fun to make potential failures for ickle babies instead of for yourself.
Rather than hall my whole diaper backpack (with blankets and toys, and my water) into the bathroom at church, I wanted a self-containted diaper changing kit I could just grab and take with me . I used scraps, and was making it up as I went, so I would like to remake it neater with more for-thought, but, this works fine and don't want to waste time and money.
 |
| Top compartment holds spare covers, the green compartment holds a ziplock of whipes, and the bottom part is a whipeable changing pad with a pocket for holding the cloths. I usually pull them out while the baby is on top of the changing pad. |
 |
| THe top compartments flip on top of the changing pad, then it folds in half with a handle, so I can just grab it out of my backpack and take it with me. |
 |
| THis shows where the cloths are hidden under the velcro fold over of the ch anging pad. you can see I used the fabric inside out to have the laminate on the outside... since I was to cheep to buy more fabric to have laminate and print on the outside. |
My wet bags came out lovely. 2 bags cost me little over 5 bucks to make for both (compared to 10 15 each) and were quick. You can see how squiggly my sewing is. My sewing machine is fairly crappy and sometimes its not worth the effort to try and force it to sew strait. I mean, it's cool and I did it on purpose.
 |
| Only slightly more complicated than a pillowcase. Laminate on the inside, velcro to cose. |
 |
| My wrist straps were surprisingly tidy |
 |
| My squiggly stitches were "on purpose" |
When it got really cold for a while and I didn't have hats, I made up a pattern (simple) based on a knitting pattern that was basically a rectangle with a seam on one edge. I thought they came out cute. Silly, but cute. Sometimes they look like Russian women, sometimes like little hobbits. The hats were also made from used t/shirts and sweater linings. 100 points for being free.
 |
| Silly warm boy. |
 |
| a month and a half later, I finished the second hat. In this photo, I still need to do a top stitch on the one on the right, but I did finish it last night! |
Then, looking for more sweaters at kid to kid (a lot of my hand me downs were short sleves) I found a sock monkey sweater, so of course, that meant the day before the church halloween party, I had to make a second costume. I thought it would be easy, but I forgot that picking a non streatchy fabric is hard to get over baby heads, in the end I made it work, but it took 4x as long as it should have. I'm pretty proud of using no pattern though.
 |
| In the end I used a green onesie underneath. The back was sliced from top to bottom, and I had to reconnect it with lengths of elastic. |
And lastly, I felted an old cashmere sweater that had a few holes in it to reuse the wool. It's all fluffy now. Wool, from what I read, is amazing. It insulates your body temp well whether it's hot or cold outside, it breathes well, and It absorbs alot of moisture and pulls it away from your skin without wicking and transferring to the other side of the fabric... so it's good for keeping you dry in rain, and for pulling sweat/urine away from skin, and its antibacterial so it can absorb urine many times before it smells and you have to hand wash it. Usually you can air dry, swap for another pair, then reuse, washing 1-2 times a month. Hence, some people love wool soakers, aka diaper covers, especially for night time. For all these reason wool is apparently amazing, so I've been wanting to make something with it.
 |
| See how fluffy it got!! Sadly you can still see the holes. I was hoping they would felt in, but I cut around it . |
 |
| It shrunk a bit when I felted it. shame I cut of the sleeves when the elbows wore through. I could have made nursing pads from the cuffs. |
Well, one of my little ones has started getting some rashes, so I need to change him often, and even though I use disposables at night time, I was looking for something better. the velcro tabs seem to irritate his skin though the disposable diaper, because it is scratchy. So I finally broke down, and yesterday I took a free wool soaker pattern, and made a test diaper with some scrap material. Its a bit feminine in color, but kinda cute. I then made a fluffy soft wool one cutting up my now felted sweater. With the cloth diaper underneath, it makes a supper fluffy butt. I want to put a tail on it. I need to lanolize it (incase my sweater was processed) just in case, but I'll be trying it out soon.
 |
| TEST Material., but without the cloth inside. I think he looks like a boxer. |
 |
| Gotta love the paint on the fabric. Also, I sewed the waist band to the wrong side. |
 |
| I decided to make him wear it today with a diaper underneeth. Because it was just sweat shirt material, I did have to use a cover underneath. |
 |
| Voila, soft fluffy wool with a cloth inside. I ended up making the legs shorter to to use smaller scraps of the wool, and I had to make the legs tighter. Not as cute, but it works. |
 |
| Next time I wont skimp on the length of the leg cuffs so it will be cuter. |
 |
| Inside out . I patched together scraps to make an extra thick "wet zone" area |
