I figured I'd put some of the projects I worked on with links just for reference... and to get myself motivated to work on more once Caleb can entertain himself for an extended period of time.
During the latter half of my pregnancy I decided to pick up sewing because it was too painful watching everyone have fun on the surf while I sat on the beach with my crochet and knitting projects. As beautiful as the beach was, I couldn't help but wish I was in the water surfing with my husband and our friends.
One of the big projects I worked on while I was in the final months of my pregnancy was creating homemade cloth diapers. Wow... that was a nice crash course in Sewing 101. I wish my mom showed me how to sew when I was a teenager, but looking back at how I was back then (more focused on school and sports than on anything else), it probably wouldn't have worked out if she tried. Sewing cloth diapers is a great, simple project, though... especially since you get to sew (dun-dun-dun) elastic with casing! Here's the original model I tried: the Rita Rump Pocket, available (graciously) free online!
A diaper I made-- note the soft microfleece inner and the cute flannel print outer layers!
An early picture of my diaper stash... complete with homemade microfleece/flannel wipes from the scraps. :)
I first tried them on the baby when he was only a few weeks old (I believe about 6 weeks old... after his circumcision looked fairly healed), and they fit nicely with a small diaper cover (Thirsties Duos-- a very good and affordable PUL diaper cover for babies with skinny legs!) which allowed me to avoid using safety pins (yeowch!).
One fun thing I got to try was using the Wonderwash, a neat little hand-powered pressure-washing device that allowed me to wash the diapers a couple of times while using minimal power (basically Karm-powered!), water, and soap. I would dry it with a small countertop spin dryer, and then hang dry the rest.
I normally sun dry the diapers on our tiny little apartment... porch (for lack of a better word, since we live on the first floor, so it technically isn't a balcony) whenever I can. Unfortunately, given the design of the apartment complex we live in, we get very little sun during the day (normally in the early, early hours of the morning), so I end up doing some of the drying indoors in the bathroom... haha!
Drying diapers with my $1.50 contraption from Marukai Daiso. Woohoo!
We've been house-hunting, though, and hopefully we'll get (at the very least) a nice condo or townhouse in Encinitas or Carlsbad with ample sunlight for sunning diapers. You'd be amazed at how well a little lemon and a lot of sunlight can get rid of baby poop stains on a cloth diaper.
When I was about 34 weeks along the way, my OB-Gyn told me during one of the weekly checkups (they become weekly once you're in that window of opportunity) that I had a small baby. At first it seemed like a relief to me-- I mean, I gained about 40+ lbs (I started out at 98lbs) during my pregnancy, so I was certain the baby was going to be big... but then I realized that I bought (one-size-fits-most) cloth diapers that were good for 8+ lb babies, and a tiny baby was going to need smaller diapers. Thus, I started making newborn-sized diapers for a newborn-sized baby... and knitting wool newborn-sized soakers (that I found on a nifty little site called Ravelry)to hold them up.
Needless to say, I popped out a 7lb5oz baby who wouldn't even fit into the newborn-sized diapers when he could finally wear them (after his circumcision site healed and we didn't have to use aquaphore on it anymore). =P
....annnnnnd I hear someone yawning. Baby's awake! I'll put up more of my crafting projects soon. In the meantime, that's it for now. :)
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