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| Not your ordinary ruffled diaper cover... but we re-purposed an old denim skirt! |
Don't get me wrong... I did plenty with my four kiddos around. I chose to home-school (You think people look at you weird now when you say you home-school? Imagine how they looked at my husband & I in the late 1980's & early 1990's!), I also sewed, tried to fix healthy food, did crafting on the side to make money (usually at Christmas-time), kept our home, baked goodies, etc. But most of what I did were things that were something I would have had to buy, if I didn't make it. Not usually crazy, just-for-fun stuff. So I feel like I can be a little more creative with my grandkids. I can waste time making things for them or with them that aren't necessarily something they need. Just something they may like. Or something I may like. Which brings me to todays project. Not a necessity, but certainly fun!
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| The Most-Beautiful-Baby-Girl in the whole, wide world!! My only grand-daughter, Genevieve Fey. |
Out of five grandchildren, our youngest is the only girl! She is now not quite 10 months old. You can imagine how much fun I've been having making various little things for her! Before the birth, we started on her crib quilt with Mommys chosen theme: pale pink & mint with a bright red ladybug thrown in. Then I bought this great fabric to make a ladybug rug for her floor. I've made her tons of hair clips with little bows & other 'bling'. Made her a personalized stocking for her first Christmas (2 months old) with her nursery/quilt theme on it. Made her a few crocheted headbands of various colors. (Can't even remember the colors now!) But then I saw this diaper cover and knew I had to try it out!
My youngest daughter recently ripped this skirt while climbing out of a truck. I found it in her garbage can & I snagged it! Free fabric. Score! (She & her sister hate it when I dig through their trash & find things I think we should keep! On more than one occasion I will ask them about an item, and they will inform me that they 'thought they threw that away a long time ago'! Ooops!)
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| This rip is a little higher than I thought...gonna have to be creative... |
Anyway, I washed the skirt and put it with my sewing fabric for a later date. I knew there were lots of ideas out there on Pinterest that would show me how I could make good use of this bonus piece of fabric! Then when I started this diaper cover project I thought, 'why not'? I can make more than one style & I really wanted to try the denim. So here we go.
I got my pattern & needed materials list from: http://katiejgibson.blogspot.com/2011/07/diaper-cover-tutorial.html .
Materials Needed:
1/3 yard fabric for diaper cover
1/3 yard fabric for ruffles
1 yard plus 6" of 1/4" elastic (I used 1 yard plus 6" of 1" wide, colored elastic instead, shown in later photos.)
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| First I cut the back panel away from the waistband & front of skirt, leaving the side seams attached to the front piece. |
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| Couldn't place my pattern here or I'd lose my pocket. |
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| This was a much better placement spot. Time to start cutting. |
I originally wanted to use the back exactly as it was, with the seam in the middle and the two pockets on either side. Turns out it would make the back piece much too wide, or it would have cut off the bottom far corners of each pocket. So I just decided to cut each back piece, making sure the pocket would be saved. Then I had to make sure I cut a bit extra down the middle where the fold would have been, since I would now need to sew a seam along this edge. There was also the problem of the rip, which I should have just sewn up first, then I could ensure I would have the correct width when done, but I did it the hard way. Oh well. Seems it turned out ok.
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| I cut each piece out, but not on the fold. (It wasn't possible.) |
Now I've got one of each. One front piece and one back piece. Next I used the back piece pattern to cut the next back piece. Again, making sure I saved the entire pocket, seams and all. I really didn't want the headache of trying to fix a problem like that later, if it was un-necessary.
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| Here are the two pieces for the front & two for the back laying beside each other. |
After I cut the second back piece, I cut out the second front piece. Then I started sewing.
First I sewed up the rip, shown here in the pic to the right. (Right below the pocket.) Then I sewed up the back where the fold would have been, ending up with a back seam up the middle. Next I sewed up the front in the same way, creating a seam up the front middle.
My next problem was trying to figure out how to cover up this old paint splatter! I decided to add ruffles here, coming out of the pockets, instead of across the entire back, which would cover up the cute pockets I tried so hard to save!
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| This is a paint splatter that needs to be covered up! |
I had some cute fabric that was already washed, dried & ironed. I cut 2 strips, each 10" x 2" long:
I sewed up the shorter ends of the strips with the right sides together. Then I flipped them right-side-out...
Next, I ran a 'gathering' stitch along the long, bottom edges...
I pulled the thread & gathered the pieces until they fit into the pockets... Then I sewed them in.
For the edges I decided to use a colored elastic that was 1" wide. I just used a zig-zag stitch on it & stitched half of it onto the inside, pulling it as I went. (Half meaning 1/2" of the 1", as if there were an imaginary crease down the long center of the elastic. That crease should end up on the raw edge. Just as if you were working with bias tape.) Then I folded the other half of it up and over the raw edge and sewed onto the outside with a zig-zag stitch again, pulling the elastic as I went.
Ta-Da! All done! It didn't turn out exactly the way I had envisioned it... but I did cover up the paint! And I realized when I was done that this isn't the type of 'ruffled' diaper cover I was planning to make at all. Now I'll have to make another!
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