DyperDave said:
I have been wanting to sew my own diapers for more than twenty years. Finally got around to it. Turns out I was using the wrong machine. A regular sewing machine was the wrong way to go. A Brother 1034D Serger is what I needed and now it is very easy to sew flat diapers.
I have tried using single layer cotton and muslin, but they don't have the right feel. Flannel feels better, but it is not quite right, either. I recently bought a yard of 500 gsm bamboo/cotton, but it is way too heavy for a diaper of itself. I ended up cutting it into soaker pads and it works great in that capacity.
Right now, I'm waiting for an order of double gauze to arrive. It seems the good quality flat gauze diapers from adultclothdiaper is double gauze.
Just curious what other home-sew diaper fabrics others have used and how they liked it?
Well, first off, there's this 39-member ADISC group:
Cloth Diaper Designers and Hobbyists
I'm a member, but have only done a bit of hand-sewing, mostly sewing together old cloth baby diapers and making extenders for disposable baby diapers. Nothing too awesome--yet!
Diaper fabrics are tricky, especially if you're a texture fanatic like me. Here are my own opinions, based mainly on ready-made cloth diapers:
Gauze: Awesome, at least if it's the vintage stuff. Just don't use Snappis or Boingos with it, as many gauzes are too delicate for those. Modern gauze fabrics are also quite various, each with its own pros and cons. Here are some of the gauzes I've tried:
- AdultClothDiaper.com/All Together Diaper Co. gauze: A very open weave that tends to pill a bit and, unlike most other gauzes, doesn't quilt much. I'm not a huge fan, mainly because of the lack of quilting. They are fine, functional diapers, though.
- Angel Fluff Diaper Co. gauze: Angel Fluff admits that they use whatever gauze is available cheap, so who knows what you'll get. The stuff I got had a very odd, micro-quilted texture (once washed) and was extremely stretchy. Like, once the diapers were washed and shrunk, they could almost be stretched back to the pre-shrunk size, which was...interesting. Not a huge fan, though. The micro-quilting makes it feel kind of "rough". (Not to mention that these are by far the thinnest prefolds in my stash, and Angel Fluff has the nerve to call them "night time weight". Hmmm...)
- Baby Pants gauze: This stuff pills like crazy! Nooo!!! Of these first three, it's by far my favorite because it quilts a lot, but the pilling does make it feel a bit rough. At the same time, it manages to feel a bit squishy, which is nice... To be fair, though, I haven't had my Baby Pants gauze diapers for long, so perhaps they simply haven't gotten past the pilling phase.
- Vintage Curity prefold gauze: This is the best stuff by far, IMO--negligible pilling, gentle quilting, and very soft. Unfortunately, to make adult diapers out of it, you'd have to carefully deconstruct some prefolds. I once thought that the softness of these was a function of age, as my stash contained only some very used Curity prefolds. I then managed to find a brand new box on eBay, and nope! They're soft right from the get-go. Damn! Why can't they still make this stuff?!
- Vintage Curity flat diaper gauze: Soft and pill-free, but doesn't quilt much. I really prefer quilting. If you want to use a vintage gauze, though, these vintage Curity flats are available brand new on eBay all the time, and the fact that they're flat certainly eases reuse.
Flannel: Cute-looking (if printed), but flat, not as absorbent, and not very baby-authentic either. Not many actual baby diapers are made of flannel, at least not where the flannel makes up the bulk of the diaper. Some do use it as a cover. Occasionally, you'll find flannel baby prefolds, but these are almost universally sold as "burp cloths", and not as diapers. Babykins and LL Medico both sell flannel adult prefolds. (The LL Medico ones are made by Gary Mfg.) I have some of the former. They're flat, relatively thin, and just don't give me that baby feeling at all. Also, like gauze, you don't use Snappis or Boingos with these. In this case, you'll be lucky to get the teeth through the fabric! So you'd better have snaps, Velcro, or pins. (I like pins the best anyway.)
Diaper Twill (100% Cotton): Wonderfully quilted and fairly soft. Seems to go through a "pilling phase" that varies in duration according to the make of the fabric. I have some cotton twill baby diapers from Green Mountain Diapers, Nicki's Diapers, and Bummis that were virtually pill-free after about two dozen washes, some from Diaper Rite that are moderately pilly, and then I have some no-name baby prefolds that are very pilly, and yet quite used. Who knows? But, in general, I like the cotton diaper twill, and we AB/DLs are fortunate to have Changing Times Diaper Co., whose cotton twill prefolds are made by the exact same factory in Pakistan who makes the Green Mountain baby diapers, and using the same exact construction. So--maximum babyness! The Baby Pants twill diapers are pretty good also, and the sizing is actually a bit better for me, but the rounded corners and all-around stitching are a departure from typical baby diaper construction, so they fail on authenticity.
- Side-note: There are lots of other cotton diaper twills out there, including unbleached and organic cottons. These latter two are universally less quilted, and also tan in color, so I'm less excited about them. I sort of prefer my diapers to be white--when I put them on.
Diaper Twill (Cotton/Bamboo Blend): Much softer than the all-cotton twills, but doesn't quilt as much, which for me is a downside. But I like it! It seems to be more absorbent, too, and certainly takes longer to dry than the all-cotton twills. It's unfortunately only available in baby diapers, and I have some cotton/bamboo prefolds from Nicki's and Green Mountain. The Green Mountain ones are a bit softer, but unfortunately no longer made. I would love to see Changing Times do a cotton/bamboo twill diaper at some point, but I'm not holding my breath. It would be even cooler if the fabric was available bleached.
Birdseye: Like gauze, it's hard to generalize. There are many different diaper fabrics called "Birdseye", and they vary quite a bit. Here are some I've tried:
- Baby Pants Birdseye: Very heavy and rough-textured, but quite absorbent! I'm not a big fan. These are probably the least-used prefolds in my stash.
- Nicki's Diapers Birdseye: They actually sell flat baby diapers made using a bamboo/cotton blend Birdseye, which is kind of unique. Of the modern Birdseyes I've tried, this material is probably my favorite. It's a very tight weave, but still soft. And, gloriously, I can simply stack a few of these diapers and pin them right on, although that's really nothing to do with the fabric.
- Gerber Birdseye: Very soft. I actually like their Birdseye baby prefolds for stuffers. I think the magic is that this Birdseye uses larger threads and a looser weave than some others.
- Vintage Soft Care Birdseye: By Kendall/Curity, and identical to the Gerber prefolds. I have some of these, too.
So, to really distill from all that: If I was to sew my own prefolds from scratch, I'd try to find a bamboo/cotton-blend twill that used bleached/non-organic fabrics, both because of the white color, and also because the non-organic and bleached cotton twills tend to quilt up a lot more. Hopefully that wouldn't diminish the bamboo softness. This might be a mythical fabric, though.