My First Swim Diaper!

I've been wanting to try my hand at diaper sewing for awhile now. I'm not sure what took me so long...it only took about an hour and a half, including drawing my pattern and sewing it! It's far from perfect, as I knew it would be. But I made it entirely from materials I had on hand so I wouldn't feel bad when it didn't turn out pretty.

I used instructions for drafting my pattern found here. And roughly went by the diaper sewing instructions here. Since I was making a swim diaper I only used 2 layers of fabric and didn't use a soaker/insert.

I used an old poncho for my outer, waterproof fabric and fleece for my inner fabric. Next time I will use mesh on the inside, but I didn't want to waste it on a practice run. The poncho material worked surprisingly well, although I'm not sure that it would be sturdy enough to use with snaps. I also used 1/4 inch elastic and 3/4 inch velcro.

Blue outer layer, red inner layer

Taken right before turning right side out: 1/4 in elastic sew into the seam allowance

Taken after turning: top-stitching around the edges

Despite the cosmetic flaws, it fit her pretty well.

Check out that belly!

Things I want to do differently on the next one:

• Use mesh as my inner fabric so it will dry quicker. I would also like to try other, more lightweight materials (I'm curious how an old t-shirt would work).
• Make my tabs square and put velcro all the way to the end of the tab.
• Make my top-stitching closer to the edge on places where there is no elastic.
• Use a bigger seam allowance (I used 1/4 in) so that my open edges (from turning) will get caught in the top-stitching and will look nicer.

I hoping to have time to try a second one tonight. I'm excited to see how making these changes will play out. I think I found my new addiction...