20 minute diaper cover

As you may or may not know, we have our third child due to arrive this June, I've never cloth diapered a newborn before, but since DD developed such a sever allergie to disposables, I don't want to risk using sposies for even the first few weeks this time. Good news is I got to build a newborn stash, bad news is I needed everything and with DH not working I didn't exactly have a great budget for new diapers. I couldn't bring myself to buy a bunch of newborn covers since this will likely be our last baby so I sat down at the sewing machine and this is what I came up with.

So far I've only made newborn covers with this pattern but I think I will make some Large ones soon as DD's medium wraps don't fit over a premium prefold very well and I want some matching for both girls.

20 minute diaper cover

Materials Needed

Sewing machine

Fleece or wool interlock (upcycled wool suit jackets work great) and thread

12" length of 1/2" wide elastic

6 socket snaps and 5 stud snaps and and caps

Snap pliers or press

or

7" loop and 3" of hook aplix or touch tape and your choice of fastener for the cord snap down

Step 1 - make your pattern

I will post the pattern I used once I get it digitized, but in the mean time you can make your own pattern to fit by simply tracing one of your fitted diapers and adding 1 1/2 inches all around. You may find it easier to make a pattern of half of a diaper folded lengthwise so that is fits on a legal sized peice of paper, or you can use a paper grocery bag to make your pattern.

Step 2 - cut your fabric

Cut two peices for each cover. layer the fabric wrong sides together and pin.

Step 3 - sew your 2 layers together

Using a straight stitch on your sewing machine stitch around the outside of your fabric staying as close to the edge as you can. Start on the top edge of the front wings and go around to the other top edge leaving a 4 or 5" opening in the front top edge. Turn fabric rightside out.

Step 4- Elastic

I prefer to make elastic casings vs stitching the elastic directly into a project, mainly because no matter how much I practise I still always end up stitching through the elastic and redering it useless. Elastic casings are just easier and more fool proof for people like me. If you prefer you could stictch the elastic directly in and save a couple of steps, or you can play it safe like I do and sew in 8" elastic casings in each leg opening and a 6" one in the center of the back edge of the diaper cover. Use a safety pin to feed the elastic into the casing. Secure one end of the elastic with a straight stitch. Pull the elastic tight and secure the other end with a straight stitch, trim excess elastic. Repeat for both legs and back edge.

Step 5 - Finish

Top stitch the opening you left in the front of the diaper cover and add your snaps or aplix. I prefer snaps so that is what I've done here. I have placed 7 socket snaps, caps in, along the front edge of the diaper cover, 2 studs, caps out, on each tab, and a single stud, cap in, directly under the center snap of the front in order to secure the cord stump fold down.

If you are using aplix you will attach a 5" strip of loop along the front of the cover, 1 1/2" of hook on each tab and 1" of loop on the inside of the back edge to secure the aplix in the wash. You will also need to attach some sort of fastener to the center front of the cover to create a cord stump dip, that could be a button or a sew on snap or you could even sew it down if you really want too.

Converting Gdiapers from Aplix to Snaps

My newest cloth diaper obsession is the gdiaper. Since we are about to have 2 in cloth I wanted to find something that I could fit more of in a load and the solution turned out to be gdiapers and prefolds. I picked up a small starter set and 2 medium starter sets on sale at London drugs for $26 each and a few good vibes at nature's fair (my local whole foods type market) for $13 each and then filled out my stash with used Gpants I bought from local and online mamas. Since I was searching for the best possible price I got quite a few dipes that had old shot aplix fasteners. I could either replace the aplix with new strips from Gdiaper Head Quarters or I could just convert them to snaps. Since I love any excuse to use my snap pliers I opted for snaps. I had some old and some new style pants to convert, the process is slightly different for the different styles but the basic principles are the same.

Step one - Remove the old aplix strips Simple remove the old aplix using a seam ripper, when you take the aplix off the back of the gpants the little snap tabs that you attach the liners to will come off as well, make sure you don't lose them, stitch them back on with a straight stitch on the sewing machine or just by hand with a needle and thread.

Step two (NS only)- tack down the fold released when the aplix is removed when the aplix is removed you will find a loose flap of fabric at the edge of the elastic waist band, simply tack it back down using a straight stitch on the sewing machine or by hand using a needle and thread.

Step three - measure out the snap placement Using a cloth measuring tape mark out the snap placement. you want 4 studs on each of the back sides and 2 sockets on each of the front tabs. A total of 8 studs on the back and 4 sockets on the front. I space the snaps 3/4" apart on the smalls and 1" apart for mediums or larges.

Step four - Apply snaps Follow the directions for your snap pliers or press to attach size 20 resin snaps. Make sure the snap caps are facing out on the front and in on the back.

Here is the full video tutorial. Happy Snapping.

Stripping diapers with RLR

My latest shipment of diaper paraphernalia arrived today (well yesterday if I hadn't been in the hospital with an IV in my arm)A new pail liner, some new to me prefolds and 5 little packets of RLR.

For those of you who don't know what RLR is, it's a laundry treatment made by Cadie, and I had heard from many a cloth diapering mam that it works wonders to remove buildup on diapers. You just throw it in the washer with your clean diapers and run a hot wash with no detergent and rinse until there are no bubbles left in the water.

I have been battling stink with my bamboo fitteds for a little while, they were fine during the day but when we used them overnight they would have the worst ammonia stink come morning. I had tried my regular 3 hot washes with no soap method of stripping them but it wasn't helping so I ordered the RLR. I figured I would split up the diapers and first run just my fitteds, microfiber gdiaper inserts and the few AIO's I have in the first load, I threw all the clean dipes in the washer dumped the little packet of white powder on top and started up the washer. Keep in mind all of these diapers where recently washed in hot water 3 times with no soap and there were no bubbles in the washer.

Here's what I got by the time the rinse was about to start.





I scooped out all the extra bubbles and then continued to run 2 rinses and then another 2 full wash and double rinse cycles until all the bubbles were gone, all the diapers came out of the washer without a hint of stink.

Next I ran a load of prefolds, none of these had any stink issues, but I figured just in case I might as well run them through with the RLR too.




And those were the diapers that (I thought) had no buildup. Now I need to find a Canadian retailer for RLR if anyone knows of one with good shipping I would love to know.