Starting Up a Diaper

Supplies:
PUL (polyurethane laminate) or Ultex (PUL is more durable)
Fold Over Elastic (make sure it is 1", which is softer)
Plastic snaps or velcro. There is a velcro designed specifically for diapers but that is something I haven't used at all.
Plastic Snap applicator (watch for sales. They market for $20, but I paid $13.)
These are the supplies for the cover. I'll talk about the soaker another day, after I've researched it more. Unfortunately, my kids have not used these covers, but a mom who has loves the one I sent her.

In order to get the most out of my yardage, I cut several diaper covers on the edge and sewed them in various ways to get a whole one. This was the test to see if I needed to seam seal it (yes), but most babies won't use it like a water balloon, so even unsealed I bet it's pretty good. Plus, my diapers use two layers of PUL, so it's almost unneccessary.

This photo (above) is the one that helped me realize my big diapering mistake. When I sewed my two PUL layers together, I sewed the two wrong sides together. But in a diaper cover, you want the inside layer to be wipeable. See how the moisture soaks into the knit layer? Even though it's polyester, it still absorbs water. You will want to sew your two layers facing the same direction so that the inside of the cover has the wrong side showing:

This is the pattern I'm using. I cut the small and am adding adjustment snaps to make it smaller, which I'll show later on.

The seam sealed.

This is tracing pellon. I almost never cut my patterns, but use tracing pellon so I can use all the sizes in the pattern.

Tracing pellon laid out on fabric. Whenever you can, buy a full yard of PUL. This is a fat quarter, and I only get 2 out of each fat quarter, and one of those has a seam down the center.

Seam Sealer I used. It smells suspiciously like rubber cement.

A finished diaper

Nowhere in any research I did, did I read that you need to put either interfacing or a second layer of fabric with the plastic snaps. Imagine my surprise when the snap pulled on through! This is a patch just as a sample to show the mom the diapers, and now I put two layers of PUL inside each snap.

The two rows of snaps joined up to make the diaper smaller.