Monday, April 1, 2013

Mend-It-Monday: cloth diaper repair

I hope everyone had a nice Easter weekend! AB spent her Easter throwing up everywhere (mostly on me). Not exactly the most fun holiday I can remember, and it was disappointing not being able to go to church (although, I think that's where she picked up the bug in the first place). I did manage to cook a meal and my wonderful husband cleaned the house, so we accomplished something with our day!

Nothing gets used around this house as much as AB's cloth diapers, so it should surprise no one that in the last year, they've gotten a bit...worn out. We have 19 Bumgenius Elemental All-In-One cloth diapers, which are made from many layers of organic cotton, with a waterproof PUL shell. We have about 10-15 other various kinds of diapers, but the Elementals are what get used the most. Per manufacture recommendations, I wash diapers every other day. During the summer, I line dry, but I've been lazy this winter and they're mostly been dried in the dryer.

This kind of rigorous use has caused some wear on the seams. Within the last month, a few holes have developed.



The holes are located where the sewn-in soakers attach to the main body of the diaper. Since we purchased new from the manufacturer (Cotton Babies) we had a one year warranty, but I didn't personally feel like our issues were due to defects, just normal wear and tear, so I didn't bother trying to return them. I decided to try slowing down the damage by sewing up the holes.

I doubled up on thread and hand-sewed the holes closed. It was important to be very careful of not poking through the waterproof PUL (the orange part) because a hole would make them, well, not waterproof! I've heard that if you do end up with a hole (for instance, if you're sewing your own diapers) that you can toss the item into the dryer and it will seal up any holes from sewing.

Once I completed the hand-sewing, it didn't look pretty, but it's much better than holes. Without being super gross, let's just say that they're easier to get clean when there aren't places for...stuff...to hide!


I hope this quick repair will help these diapers make it through until AB potty trains. I should mention, last month Cotton Babies released a new version of this diaper, where there are no seams like this, the soakers and body are all sewn together to the PUL. Made me pretty jealous, because that design makes way more sense. Kudos to them for improving on an already great product.

Now it's back to watching AB like a hawk for any signs of illness!

1 comment:

  1. I replaced the insides of mine with new fabric. www.facebook.com/sweetbabybreathbylillie

    ReplyDelete

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