Cloth Diaper Sewing Tutorial

Now that I've made the prototype diaper and got my daughter's approval (she loves it), I can now go ahead and make a stash of these for her.  Once I was partway through the first batch I thought I should make a tutorial post so that if I don't get to them all right away I will remember how I made them lol.  I'm not including the actual pattern because there are already lots of free patterns out there - Google is your friend.  The one shown here was done with a commercial single size pattern that I converted to a one size pattern, but for the next batch I am going to try this pattern from this site (which has a ton of great resources and tutorials).  The reason for this is that I have read complaints that many of the commercial diapers aren't quite long enough for older babies/toddlers and the linked pattern is a little longer than what I am currently using.  I bought a meter of PUL in each of three colours.  By staggering the pattern back and forth I can get eight covers out of a meter, all oriented the correct way (so the bears are upright on the bum).  If there is no obvious direction to the pattern of your fabric you may be able to juggle more covers out of a meter.

I cut out my PUL cover and the lining using the same pattern piece.  I put the snaps in the prototype after sewing the diaper together but this leaves the back of the snaps exposed.  This time around I put in the snaps before any assembly and used scraps of fabric to reinforce the snaps.  This is how the commercial diapers I repaired were done.  The snap on the flannel side is centred 2 3/8" down from the top edge of the back (back waist).

Baste the front waist seam, then using a pressing cloth so as not to melt the PUL, press this seam open.  You could skip this step but I do it because it gives me a nice neat straight folded edge later when topstitching.

Stitch the rest of the way around to join the two pieces.  I used a 3 stitch length.  You don't want too small of a stitch with the PUL.

Mark the starting and ending points of the elastic placements (2 legs and the waist back).  I just use a black pen or sharpie for all my markings since they won't show after.

Backstitch the elastic to the starting point, then stretch it out while basting it down in the seam allowance.  Cut the excess when done.  I do it this way rather than precutting the elastic because it is easier to hold and stretch when one long piece.

Remove the basting along the front edge and turn the diaper.

I use Wonder Clips instead of pins so as not to add any unnecessary holes to the PUL.

Rolling the seams between your finger and thumb before topstitching helps to get the seams right to the edge.

Topstitch all the way around, jogging out at the elastic to create a casing and stretching out the elastic as you sew.

Mark the front flaps for the snaps 1/2" from the edge, 1" down from the top and 1" apart.  I added an addition outward facing snap between the flap snaps on one side to accommodate smaller sizes.

And that's it.

I'm looking at changing the soaker pattern as well.  The prototype one is just a big rectangle, but I think something that is wider on the back side will better contain messes and make them easier to deal with.