What I've Been Sewing - Fitted Diapers

There was a tragedy with my sewing machine. I'm not sure what I did exactly, but I broke a needle and now it makes a horrible thumping sound. I'm hoping it can be fixed, you know, because I love it, but in the mean time I'm breaking in the back-up sewing machine I bought at a yard sale for $10. It's an older machine and it doesn't have the nice features my regular machine has, and it has some quirks I'm still figuring out, but for $10 it's doing the job pretty darn well.

And if it fails, I'll break out the even older back-up to my back-up sewing machine. It's in the old sewing table I use as a nightstand in our guest room, but the lady who gave it to me said it worked the last time she used it. :)

But anyway, over the next couple days I'll be posting everything I've been sewing the last few weeks with my new/old machine...

Newborn Fitted Cloth Diapers
I've been giving cloth diapers another go. It's not going as well as I hoped. Ha ha. My hopes do tend to be a little high. Anyway, I decided to start practicing with newborn diapers. Not because I need them yet, mom. ;) But because they use less fabric (so I'm not out as much if I mess up) and because I'll want newborn fitteds with covers anyway so I can make these without using the more expensive waterproof fabric until I know what I'm doing. This is the outside of my first attempt:

The outside is just a cute cotton knit from Joanne Fabric. For a tiny newborn the front snaps down below the belly button . Nifty.

 The inside is organic bamboo velour, and there is an extra soaker layer made of hemp french terry sewn in the middle. I may need to make a lay-in soaker to add more absorbancy because now I'm doubting my little layer-and-a-half will be enough!

I actually tried a couple different patterns out to see which I like best. Unfortunately none of them turned out awesome, but part of that was my sewing machine & sewing skills failing me. Ha. The two on the left are two different sizes of the free Newborn Darling Diaper pattern. While it's free, it's a pattern only with no instructions. They want you to pay for those. Um.... no thanks, I think I'll fly by the seat of my pants instead! For the one on the left I used the double row of snaps and the middle one uses just a single row (which seems like plenty for such a small diaper). I did the elastic on the left one wrong and it turned out stiff and weird, but the one in the middle turned out nice and fluffy (if a little uneven)!

The diaper on the right is from the free Cloth Revolution pattern. This one is definitely my least favorite so far, but it may not all be the diaper's fault. The biggest problem is that the leg holes are HUGE! And I think the tabs look goofy, but to be fair it was supposed to be a side-snapping diaper and I switched it to the regular snap layout. This pattern did include directions, but they were not well organized so I just winged it again. :) Overall, though I wasn't as happy with this pattern. I probably won't give it another try. But I might give this free pattern from the Nappy Network a try, you know, just to see ALL my options. :)

That's enough practice, don't you think? Tomorrow I'll recap how I dove in head-first to make a one-size, water-proof diaper!