Homemade Prefit Diapers

After my last post, I hope I didn't worry anyone by not writing yesterday. I just had a great project that I wanted to work on, then I could post it.

Homemade Prefitted Diapers

The Materials:

My favorite part is the flannel covering. The patterns are so much fun and varied. I found most of it in the remnant bin at Joann's for 50% off. (I make special trips to Joann's just to dig through the remnant bin). The jersey came from leftover t-shirts that the church was going to throw away. All in all, 20+ diapers for around $1.50 each. This project is technically very easy, although it requires some time to cut all of these out (keep in mind, I need about 2 dozen diapers).

The Materials:

I found good, free patterns at Fern and Faerie and at Ottobre Design, although I later decided that the easiest and maybe most accurate thing was to trace the diaper cover, so that the diaper fit exactly into the cover.

Fabric wise: you need 2 pieces of flannel, 2 pieces of jersey, 1 piece of fleece, cut as shown. The flannel and jersey follow the Fern and Faerie pattern, while the fleece panel is more like an insert, that is slightly trimmed to fit around baby's legs. As you can see here, none of the fabric has to match, because you can only see the flannel in the finished product.

Step 1: Sew the fleece panel onto the backside of a flannel piece.

A thing to note about fleece in diapering. If you buy polyester fleece, it doesn't absorb particularly well. Instead, it draws moisture through the fabric. To keep baby dry, you want to position the fleece close to the skin, so it pulls the moisture away. If you splurge for hemp or bamboo fleece, it absorbs moisture, in which case, it should be positioned away from the skin.

At this point, you can add velcro tabs to the flannel pieces. I don't because the diaper cover will hold these in place as will a Snappi.

Step 2: Match one jersey piece to one flannel piece - front sides of the fabric together. Sew just the short top edges together, then turn back sides together and iron. Repeat.

Step 3: Align front and back panels so that the flannels layers are together. Straight Stitch the sides and along back edges, leaving the short front edge open, creating a pocket.

Optional: you can add 3" of 1/2" elastic on either side at the thinnest portion (where baby's legs will be) and along the back edge. My experience is that this is unnecessary.

Step 4: Turn right side out (flannel print should be the only thing showing). Straight Stitch again along the sides and back, making sure to reinforce your stitches by the front opening.

This creates a pocket diaper which can hold an additional soaker for extra absorption (especially at night).

The finished product, folded and ready to go.