DIY: Fitted Prefold

The other day while perusing Pinterest, yah know, like ya do when you are having bon bons and sipping champagne in your sparkling clean, quiet home -- I came across some fitted prefolds. I thought they might address some issues we have with cloth diapering.

Our babiest is a very wiggily little man and keeping my newspaper fold from going all wonka is seriously difficult -- plus, the diaper liner always seems to move around no matter how I fold the diaper... and we know what that gets us.

But, I have three boys and the thought of spending an entire day doing a complicated looking prefold revamp seemed out of the question. I also didn't like the idea of adding another piece of elastic to my kid's legs - it's already bulky enough down there, and that elastic isn't keeping any wetness out - that's what my Flip is for.

Then I had an "ah hah!" moment and this method popped into my head. It. Is. So. Simple. No joke, under 5 minutes, and I'm not talking about a concentrated 5 minutes. I am talking about five minutes while having a baby on your leg and getting sucked into whatever episode of Daniel Tiger (Isn't he just the best?) is on.

You will need:

• Scissors
• Ruler
• Marking pencil (I used a purple crayon the first time)
• Prefold
• A threaded sewing machine

 

 

The smaller seam allowance, and cut line, on the "bottom" side of the diaper allows for added width to cover more bum.

 

 

 

 

These work so much better for my little boy than the regular prefolds did. I have used these prefolds for 4 years and wish I had done this 4 years ago! The diaper fits so much trimmer, the diaper liner lays flat and does not shift around and my son doesn't get weird marks on his skin from where strange folds in the diaper pressed into him. The best part? These work really well with my snappies. Before I transformed my prefolds I was really having to stretch the snappy to make it work and with any more gains we were going to have to switch to a different diaper type.

 

If you wanted you could zig zag across all your raw edges before sewing what ends up becoming the center seam of the diaper, and then leave the "pocket" open and stuff another prefold in there at night or for long trips.

 

What do you use? Let me know if this works for you or if you have any questions.

 

Project 35 of many. . .

With 3 kids the projects are getting fewer and further between. In fact, when we moved to St. Louis this summer I purposefully left almost all of my project material behind. I am sitting on my hands for a season so that I can focus on the more important project. . . my 3 boys! It is a project that spirals out of control very quickly.

The other morning before anyone else was up, (and, this never happens. I usually get out of bed at least 5 minutes after my kids have woken up.) I was reading a book about how important it is to teach your kids to use the left and right sides of their brains. It was going along pretty well, I felt like I was about to learn something major. Then I don't know what happened. I had a roll of paint tape in my hands all of a sudden and had masked off a section of the wall in my dinning room. The kids woke up, and the masked wall stayed blank for a couple of weeks. This week I finally let the kids have at it.


















































































Honestly the project turned out way better than I could have hoped. I gave the boys 3 paint colors and let the colors mostly dry before introducing another color. My favorite thing about this is that I love abstract art, but Kyle does not- but, he likes this! Why? This is not abstract to our kids, it is as real as it gets for them! To hear Jonathan talk about his art is hilarious! I think we are going to have him write out an artist statement. Ha!

Project 15 of many. . .

The need for this project developed as I realized that I could not finish project 13 without it. One of the bridesmaids that I am making a dress for is itty-bitty and I could not for the life of me figure out if her dress was going to fit her without having her try it on. Unfortunately she lives in Hong Kong. I spent the day trying to create what I imagine her upper torso must look like given the measurements I have.

I started out with a piece of cardboard for her shoulders.
Using modge podge and a scoring tool (knife) I began to give the piece of cardboard as much shape as I could. This picture also gives you an idea of how small the form is - I "draped" it over a size 3t child's form.

Inside of the form (that's the magic of Macy's)

Unfinished torso and skirt

More shaping

Once I had the basic shape that I wanted I covered everything in about 10 layers of brown paper. I wanted a sturdy and thick structure.

I over-stuffed the inside of the form with polyfil and put a 10lb bag of beans in the bottom of the form to help keep it upright (This form will sit on a table instead of resting on a pole). Then I closed up the bottom, the neck and the armholes with more cardboard, duct tape, glue and brown paper.

Next I sprayed the form with carpet adhesive and covered the form with batting.

To finish everything up I made a knit cover to put over the form. I stapled the fabric to the bottom of the form and put a piece of cardboard over the bottom to cover up the staples.
I would like to do this project again sometime with different measurements. I would extend the project over a period of about a week. I needed to finish this today, so I did not allow the glue to dry all the way which led to the form warping when I took the stays out from the inside and stuffed it with polyfil. As a result one of the shoulders appears higher and the waist doesn't seem to go in as far on one side. All in all I'm not too upset with the results from my first attempt.