Home and diapers

Maybe it's the time of year, or maybe it's just where I am in my life right now. I'm feeling lately like I just want to hunker down and not go anywhere. I want to be home. I haven't gotten to stay home nearly as much as I'd like--I really wish I didn't have to go anywhere or do anything right now.

Actually, maybe it's more that I don't have the energy to get all three kids ready to go, drag them out to the car, make several more trips for all their stuff, and buckle them into their car seats only to do the same thing in reverse a few minutes later, and then again at the end of the outing. :)

Fatigue, of course, must have something to do with my lethargy. I'm really starting to think seriously about trying to get Baby E trained to go to sleep before midnight. It's messing up her schedule and mine to have her going to sleep so late. What I need to do is start waking her up earlier in the morning, I think, so she naps earlier and hopefully goes to bed earlier too.

But, really, I am feeling more of a focus toward home and family. I have very little drive to go out to do things, go shopping, attend meetings, etc.--unusual for me. My interests tend more lately toward things like organizing my home, reading to my kids and sewing diapers. That and resting. I feel like I hardly have time to take a breath, but I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing.

My blog and e-mail correspondence are suffering because I haven't taken the time to sit down at the computer, and I don't have the mental energy to think of anything interesting to say. I've hardly even gotten online lately, except to shop for diaper making supplies.



I'm becoming quite the diaper junkie, I'm afraid. It started out with prefolds, which I do like. But, although I have fewer blowouts with them than with the disposables, the diaper cover tends to get messy often. Folding the diapers a particular way helps with that a bit, but I decided to try making a fitted diaper or two just to see what they're like. I was hoping the elastic around the legs and back would help keep the covers cleaner.

First, I made one trial diaper from a free pattern by Mamma Bird. It was so much easier than I expected. And it was so much trimmer than prefolds, and so absolutely cute! I didn't think I'd care what they looked like since they're under the diaper cover anyway. But there is something so aesthetically pleasing about a super-soft diaper that fits well and is actually beautiful. After the first one I was hooked.

That first diaper wasn't really absorbent enough, so I made another one with more padding and more layers of flannel. Then I tried making one pocket-style with a removable soaker. Then I had to try one with a different kind of sewn-in soaker. And then I started playing with the pattern, adjusting it and making changes. I want to try a variation on this pattern by ottobre too, as well as several others including an all-in-one (AIO) with the diaper attached to the wrap. I really want to try making this diaper (called PooPockets), but I don't think I can justify buying a pattern when I can make or modify one for free.

It's become the quest for the perfect diaper.

Now I find myself browsing fabric supply websites drooling over the microfiber terry and the sherpa fleece. I'm even contemplating the idea of making fitted cloth diapers as baby shower gifts.

My Aplix (like Velcro, but softer and stronger) arrived in the mail yesterday, and my waterproof fabric (similar to PUL, but cheaper and more durable) and polymer elastic for making diaper covers should be arriving any day. I may have to buy a diaper cover pattern, as there doesn't seem to be a free one online. Maybe I'll be able to figure it out by looking at some of the covers I have and playing around with it myself.

The biggest problem I'm running into is that I don't know much about my machine. I can't figure out how to get as many layers of fabric as I need to fit under the foot for sewing. There doesn't seem to be any way to get the foot to adjust higher, and I haven't been able to find a different kind of foot yet.

I bent a needle and had to go and buy new ones. I didn't even know that most (or all?) sewing machines take the same kind of needles, and that you're supposed to change the needle every 8 hours or so of sewing. This needle probably hadn't been changed for many years on the machine I got from my mom. Of course, it didn't get used much in those years.

Even though I'm far from a talented seamstress and don't know how to use my sewing machine all that well, I'm having fun.

Too much fun, maybe.