Making things on the day off

Today, I got ALL the grading done. Makes life beautiful until next Monday when I’ll start collecting work again.

With the extra time today, I made a soaker. What’s a soaker, you ask? Its that outside barrier for when you use cloth diaper that doesn’t have a water proof layer. Plenty of cloth diapers come with an outside barrier layer, such as PUL (I think the most common). I’m sure I will have several of those, but my tightwad nature and crafty hands desire to make something for my baby. Nearly a year ago, I purchased two XL sweaters at a garage sale for a quarter each with plans to try yarn recycling. That idea flopped when I realized how small the yarn was, so I saved the sweaters for something else. One is 100% cotton, the other 100% cashmere. Cashmere is wool, I thought, I could use it to make a soaker. Wool soakers are excellent at providing that outside layer, while giving baby a comfy bottom situation (not hot, not cold). Others have praised wool as soakers, see http://allaboutclothdiapers.com/brrrr-its-cold-pull-out-the-wool-longies/ for a much better explanation than I can offer. I realize cashmere might not be best of wool choices, but I thought I’d give making such a small garment a try.

I used a the pattern from http://www.diaperswappers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=227301.

Ready to work… I have the red cashmere, blue cotton sweater, a yellow fleece on bottom and a grey sweatshirt in the middle. I am thinking to use the yellow fleece for soakers, too, as I’ve read that fleece makes a good outside water “proof” layer.

Hank is even there to keep me company.

The pieces are so small! The leg cuffs were particularly tight to get the sewing foot into.

 Its so small! (scissors for size comparison)

Obviously, I’m not so concerned about looks, thus the contrasting thread. I figure at the newborn stage, it shouldn’t matter so much. I wonder if cashmere will work, because I have a fair bit of cashmere sweater left and I want to use it for something. I added a wetzone layer (to help with the wetter areas, see contrasting thread through the crotch), and used some fabric from the blue cotton sweater for that layer. 

This will likely be the soaker that gets used when the others are all dirty and I need to do laundry. But, its a start on the stash! (My luck and baby will be born too big to wear any of the little stuff I might make.)