Saturday, April 20, 2013

Snap-In and Sewn-in Soakers

I now have a VIDEO tutorial for inserts/soakers/doublers up on YouTube as well!

Today I was sewing up some natural fiber fitteds for a woman interesting in trying some basic fitteds (who had been using prefolds and synthetics before and preferred the prefolds).  So, I'll use this opportunity to talk about soaker shapes.

When I first started sewing cloth diapers, I stuck to the very simple long rectangle and long rounded corner rectangles.  Like how the typical pocket diaper inserts are.  They work fine, but they leave that funny middle bulge on the butt and don't utilize the maximum absorbency and fit for the size of diaper.

So, then I switch to contoured newborn soaker my newborn fitteds, AIOs, and AI2s, and a long-fold mostly rectangular soaker with only a wider contoured top for my M-L and OS diapers.

Here is a newborn fitted with the newborn contour snap-in soaker.

Here is one of my multi-wing fitted diapers sewn up with the medium wing length.
Inside (organic bamboo velour inner)
 Outside
 Here is the soaker snapped in.
 For this one, I did the two-layer petal soaker with the snap only through the bottom petal.
 Here is just the soaker petals.  They are far from perfect...
 Opened to show both layers and the snap.
 The back.
 Here is a MEDIUM sized Fold-In Fitted.
For this, I used the contoured soaker shape from my LARGE Sized Pocket AIO to give the middle extra absorbency.  It also provides visual guides for your leg-elastic casings.
Here, you can see how the form gives an excellent guide for sewing your casing seams.
 Here is just the cut out cotton fleece before I stitched it into the body.

8 comments:

  1. Is there a trick to prevent the snap in soakers from bunching in the center (between the legs)? Mine are T&T because I do not have a serger.

    ReplyDelete
  2. If you're using a stretch fabric, then use a walking foot while you sew. For T&T soakers, I have a tutorial that describes how I make them. If your soaker is 4 layers, sew an inside layer to an outside layer that is cut about 1/4"+ bigger all around, and do that twice. Then just sew your two outside layers together with the insides facing apart, so when you turn them through the turning hole, the middle layers are inside the little pillowcase/pocket. Then close up your turning hole and top-stitch around the whole thing. :) http://prefold2fitted.blogspot.com/2012/11/non-serged-insert-or-absorbent-soaker.html
    You don't have to use a zig-zag for the inside either. You can use a straight-stitch on most fabrics just fine.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey I just found your blog and I love it! I was wondering what your favorite fabric is for soakers? Thanks!! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I made your fold in fitted and love it! Now I'm going to try your os multiwing fitted pattern, and I have a soaker question. Is there any reason that I should not sew the soaker to the diaper? Is snapping it in better? Thanks so much for your help!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And what I mean by sewing it in is doing something like the soaker that you sewed on the petite os fitted that you made from your snap in soaker pattern.

      Delete
    2. It'd be fine either way. I really prefer the snap-in petal style soakers merely for how fast the drying time is. The more layers sewn together at any one place = longer drying time.

      Delete
  5. Does the NB contour soaker in you pattern list have a seam allowance for T&T or is it d signed to be serged?

    ReplyDelete
  6. [Please authorize this post]

    Contact him now for a herpes cure.

    I am cured from herpes…

    r.buckler11@gmail. com …..

    ReplyDelete