Sunday, January 24, 2010

Woooork it!


I just finished up a custom order of 10 diapers. Busy Busy Busy.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Elefun!


Tuesday, January 19, 2010

A Little Something for my Fellow Diaper Sewing Divas

*UPDATE* New and improved soaker templates can be found here.

I finished the pattern for the one-size contour soaker!! This is designed to fit perfectly on all size settings of the NykiBaby One Size Diaper. You can use it to make All-in-2's, Fitteds with snap in soakers and inserts for pockets.

* You will need to download the PDF file from Scribd (Below) and make sure the page scaling is set to "none" when you go to print it.

*this soaker is very full coverage and meant to completely fill out the diaper. you can trim off 1/4" to 1/2" while serging, for a trimmer fit.

*I FOUND A LITTLE MISTAKE IN THE PATTERN....When making a diaper with a snap-in soaker, the sockets should be centered along the pocket opening line.

ENJOY!
NBOS_Soaker

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Meet Big n' Fluffy



I was digging around in the boys' closet yesterday, and I found an extra big, extra fluffy pillow. Big and fluffy is a good thing for pillows. It's not a good thing when it's taking up tons of space in an already packed closet! Big n' Fluffy has been in hiding because it had no cover. I figured I could clear out a little bit of fabric and closet space by making a pillow cover and putting that mass of squishy, feathery goodness onto my couch. This is what I did:

Disclaimer: The tree with scrappy leaves design is not mine. I've seen it somewhere before, but I cant find it at the moment. 



I cut out the leaf and trunk shapes from various fabrics in my stash. (The trunk used to be part of my viking Halloween costume!) I then used a washable kid's glue stick to stick everything in place.





I used some micro fleece as a backing, then stitched around each piece about 1/8" from the edge. I threw it in the washer and dryer to fray the edges. I finished off the cover by using two overlapping pieces of the main fabric to make a quick sham back





Here's Big n' Fluffy chillaxin' with his new buddies.


Sunday, January 3, 2010

Lazy Girl Pandesal



This morning, I made pandesal! With my bread machine! These yummy little rolls baked up soft and tasty, which lead to me eating way too many of them... I used this recipe, but used the dough cycle on my bread machine to make the dough. Super easy. It turned out well, but I found that it needed to be baked quite a bit longer than the the recipe specifies. It also seems like the amount of sugar in the recipe could also be reduced a little bit. I will try that next time.

Friday, January 1, 2010

How to Make a One-Size-Fits-All AIO Diaper!


Large

Medium    

Small
This super cool soaker design grows with the diaper, that grows with your baby!


First things first: What is an AIO? AIO stands for "All in One" Diaper. These diapers combine absorbent materials with a waterproof outer cover for ultimate cloth diapering convenience. This tutorial will show you how to adapt your NykiBaby One Size Diaper pattern to make an AIO. You can also use these instructions to make fitted diapers with sewn in soakers.

Materials:

NykiBaby One Size Diaper pattern.

Diaper Body
1- cut of PUL, plus more to reinforce snaps
1- cut of your inner fabric (you can use a "stay-dry" fabric like microfleece or suede cloth, or a natural fabric like bamboo or cotton. I have used cotton velour with no wicking, but natural fabrics are more likely to wick.)
Snaps and elastic as called for in the pattern.

Soakers
10 1/2" x 4 1/2" pieces of your absorbent fabric. The number of layers needed will depend  on the absorbency of your fabric. You will be making two soakers, so consider their combined thickness when choosing the number of layers to use.
You can top your soakers with the same fabric as the diaper inner.
2- 2" x 6" scraps of fabric to reinforce the areas where the soakers are sewn.

Directions:

Make the soakers. Stack up each set of soaker fabrics in the correct order. Pin. Serge around, rounding the corners.

*Use your pattern to mark the two, top, center snap placements and the center of the pocket opening. These will help guide you in placing the soakers.

Attach the soakers to the inner fabric piece.  Line the top edge of the front soaker up with the dots marked on the front of the diaper in the previous step. Pin. Place your reinforcement fabric on the opposite side of the fabric. Stitch across, one inch from the top of the soaker. Pivot and stitch close to the edge around the top of the soaker.

Repeat for the back soaker on the opposite end of the diaper.

Place the outer layer snaps as usual.


Stitch the inner and outer together, right sides together. Leave a 3" opening in the center front for turning.

Apply elastic as usual.

Turn and Topstich. Closing up the front opening.

Apply wing snaps.


Done!


*For pictures of the outside of this diaper, check out the previous post.

Make Your Diapers Even Cuter!

Here's an easy way to add cute prints to your diapers without causing wicking or spending $13+ a yard for print PUL. The best part is you can use ANY fabric! Cotton, poly, woven, knit, minky.... Since the fabric doesn't touch the inside of the diaper, even absorbant fabrics like cotton wont cause wicking. Also, since this technique uses a small amount of fabric, cut in a simple rectangle, you won't waste any of your expensive, cute fabrics.

Materials:

Your trusty NykiBaby One Size Diaper Pattern
1- cut of PUL from said pattern
1- cut of inner fabric from said pattern (suedecloth, microfleece, whatever floats your boat.) + your pocket facing
1- 5 3/4" by 19 1/2" piece of decorative outer fabric. This will be the strip down the middle of the diaper.
Snaps and Elastic as called for in the pattern.

Directions:

You will apply your decorative strip BEFORE marking the snap placements for your diaper.

Turn all 4 edges of your decorative fabric under by 1/4" and press if the fabric allows.

*If you are using a fabric that cant be pressed or wont stay turned under, you can use a washable glue stick to stick those stubborn edges in place. Don't worry, the glue will wash out and no one will know your secret.

Center your decorative fabric on your PUL diaper cut, 1/2" from the front and back of the diaper. You don't want your decorative fabric to get caught in the seam allowances. This could cause wicking. You can use pins at the front and back ends, to keep the fabric in place, but not through the middle. You don't want to poke too many holes in your PUL. Your best bet is to use your handy-dandy washable glue stick to stick the fabric in place.

Now that your fabric is in place, stitch it down close to the edge, using a medium-long straight stitch.

Proceed with your diaper as usual.

There have been a few reports of leaking along the seam where the decorative fabric is attached. To prevent leaks, make sure you use 100% poly thread, and the finest needle that will work for the fabric. Setting your stitch to a longer length may help as well. If you still have leaks, try using a little seam sealer (like for tents) on the inside, along the seams.