Mama pads tutorial

I've said previously that these are really easy to make, and they don't really need a tutorial.  But in case you are visually minded, I've put together a step by step of my process.  There are heaps of other really good tutorials out there, so if my method doesn't work for you, just search for one that does.

Materials

PUL - enough for the full shape of the Mama pad, and some smaller scraps

Absorbent material - cotton, bamboo, microfibre, are all good choices

Snaps - either metal or plastic.

Stay dry material - like microfleece (optional).

note: I have Mama pads with both a stay dry layer and without, and to be honest, I don't notice a difference, so feel free to skip that last material if you don't have it.

Cut an hourglass shaped pad (not a squashy rectangle thing like I ended up with) from your absorbent materials.

Note: the size and shape of this is entirely up to you.  You may need to experiment with things like size, number of absorbent layers and shapes until you get something that is comfortable for you.

Using your pad shape, cut a larger hourglass with wings shape from your PUL.  It should be larger all around than your pad.

Cut a scrap of PUL to fit over the widest part of your wingy shape.  You need this as reinforcing for the snaps on the wings, and also to cover the stitching from your pad (scroll down to see what I'm talking about.)

 Note: If you wanted, you could cut two wingy shapes from PUL rather than just using a scrap.  I haven't needed the extra protection, and I'm cheap so I just use a scrap.

Place your absorbent material right side up, and overlock around the edges (this one looks much more hourglass).
Note: I use my overlocker for this but if you don't have one, a zigzag stitch on your sewing machine should do the job equally well

Stitch the pad onto right side of the wingy shape using two straight lines in the middle of the pad lengthwise - its clearer in the next photo.  These should be at approximately the same place as the wings, so that your scrap of PUL will cover them.

 Place your PUL scrap, right side to the wingy shape's wrong side, so that it covers the stitching and will also create two layers of fabric on the wings.

Overlock around the wingy shape.  If the pad gets in the way, you should be able to move it around to overlock the PUL, since it is only attached in the middle.

 Admire your handiwork.

Put snaps on the wings - I'm sorry, I failed and didn't take a photo of this step, but you want to put the snaps as close to the corner of the wings as you can.  I use metal snaps because they are cheap and I don't own a snap press, but plastic snaps would work equally well.

A present for my Mum

or dyeing wool, with pictures.

Materials
Wool
Food colouring (mine is from the supermarket)
Slow cooker
White vinegar

My base wool.  I bought a whole bag of mystery ply wool from the Hospice Shop a little while ago.  As you can see from the kinks in the wool, it was obviously from another project that has been frogged.  I had about 150g of it left, and it is most likely 4 ply.

First I skeined it around two chairs.  It pays to make this a bit bigger than you want a finished skein of wool to be, I'll explain why later.  Of course if you have some kind of fancy wool windery thing you could use that.  You can just see J's hands in the top of the photo threatening to cut things with scissors.

 I soaked the wool in a bucket of water with about 1/2 a cup of vinegar added.  I like to soak overnight, but a couple of hours will also do.

Then I dumped it into the slow cooker with some of the soaking water, some warm water, and another 3/4C of vinegar.  If you're mixing dyes, it pays to go easy on the vinegar, as more than 3/4C can make the dyes split, and you can get some unintended variegations.

Leave it in the slow cooker (with the lid on) until the water starts to steam - its a good idea to start with fairly warm water, otherwise this takes forever.  Don't use boiling water though, it might felt the wool.

Because my base was grey (and I knew from past experience with the yarn that it didn't take up dye all that well), I decided to go with a greyish blueish colour.

I mixed my dye together in a little container.

I then dumped all the dye into the slow cooker and poked it around so that all the wool got some.  I turned it down to low, and then turned it off and left the wool in the slow cooker overnight - you don't have to leave it this long, just until the water is clear.  But I knew that my wool may take a long time to soak up all the dye, and I didn't need the slow cooker for anything else.

I rinsed and then hung the wool up to dry.

Notice the interesting purple I got from my food colouring.  If you're looking for a really specific colour or combination with your dyeing, this method is not for you, its all a bit random.

Remember I said to make your skein a little big initially? Sometimes when the yarn comes out of the slow cooker, it looks blotchy - all the colour on a few patches.

It will always look better if you reskein it once its dry.  It just distributes the variegations better in the yarn.

 And there you have it.  Beautiful hand dyed yarn.

My Mum loved it, and I can't wait to see what she knits out of it.

Making underwear Tutorial

                                    

I've made P a few pairs of underwear now, and I thought I would share my methods with you, since they differ slightly from most of the tutorials I looked at.

Materials:

Cotton knit fabric - I used some old t shirts to cut up, bonus points if you can include some kind of cute logo for the undies

Note: For hygiene's sake, the crotch piece of the underwear should be cut from 100% cotton, even if the rest of the undies aren't.

Elastic - I used regular old 5mm braided elastic, but this is a little bit hard on the skin, so next time I'll try and find some softer underwear elastic or FOE.

Instructions:

Most of the tutorials recommend that you cut up an existing pair of underwear to create the pattern pieces to work from.  This is a really good idea for a much loved and worn out pair of undies.  But the frugality in me balks at cutting up one perfectly serviceable pair of P's undies in order to create another perfectly serviceable pair of undies.  So instead I drew around P's undies as best I could without cutting them up.

You will end up with  3 pattern pieces - a front piece that looks like a curved T shape, a back piece and a kind of triangley squary shape for the crotch piece.

Cut out your fabric, making sure you lay the pieces so that the stretch of the fabric goes across the pattern 

I didn't take a photo of this stage, but you all know how to lay out a pattern right?

Next, lay the pattern pieces out, one on top of the other.  Lay the front piece on the bottom, right side up.  Next lay the back piece right side down, and finally lay the crotch piece, also right side down.  Pin all three layers together at the bottom (ie not the waist part of the pieces).  Its really important to lay these out in this order so they will all turn the right way out.

Sew/overlock all these pieces together.
Note: I use my overlocker for this entire project, but if you don't have one, a zigzag stitch on your sewing machine should do the job equally well

Sew the narrow end of the crotch piece to finish it.

Fold the crotch piece over so that the seam is sandwiched between the crotch piece and the back piece of the undies.  It should look a little like an hourglass.  If your crotch piece doesn't match up with the sides of your undies, trim the undies so that they do.

Pin elastic to the front and back pieces across the top on the RIGHT side of the fabric - this creates the waistband.  To find out how much elastic you need, measure along the top of the pair of undies that you used for the pattern pieces.

Sew the elastic to the right side of the fabric, stretching it as you go along.
Note: It pays to leave a bit of a gap between the top of the fabric and the elastic - this helps to prevent the elastic touching skin.  If you are overlocking, DON'T cut the elastic as you go, the gap at the top of the fabric helps with this as well.  Just go carefully.

Pin the crotch piece into place, making sure that all the edges line up.  Sew the elastic onto the legs, also on the RIGHT side of the fabric.  You have two options for working out the amount of elastic for the legs, you can either measure along the length of the undies, and cut accordingly.  Or you can keep the elastic on the roll and just sew it onto the sides of the undies - there is no need to stretch out this elastic, its mostly just to keep the undies comfortable when they are on.

Once you have sewn up the sides, the crotch piece should also be attached, with just the finished top edge not attached to the undies - it should remain pretty secure.

Once all the elastic is attached it should look like this.

You're nearly finished! Sew the side seams - double check that they are right sides together.

Turn them right side out and admire your handiwork

Including cute logo on the bum.

Nappy envelope opening tutorial

I decided after I had described my nappies last time that I would do a tutorial about how to create an envelope opening for a cloth nappy.  The pattern I used is the wee weka sm/med pattern, and this is supposed to have a back opening, but I prefer the envelope style.

Materials:You will need all the same materials listed in the wee weka pattern, and you will need slightly more microfleece than the size of the finished nappy.

First, fold the back casing bit of the pattern over (so its not visible anymore), as if you were making a fitted nappy.  Cut out the PUL all in one piece (I didn't take a photo of this).

Cut out the microfleece until after the leg elastic markings on the pattern.  (Check out my awesome pattern weights - they are J's wooden ark set, much cooler than the tin of salmon I usually use).

Note: I usually make my opening just after the end of the leg elastic, because I find that the most economical use of microfleece.  You can have it anywhere, but if you make the opening where the legs will be elasticated, then it is going to gape open.

Next, lay the cut out piece of microfleece over the top of the rest of the fleece.  The amount of overlap is up to you.  If you want to make sure that the microfleece will cover the insert when the nappy is stretched out you should aim for probably a couple of inches.

Place the pattern back over all the microfleece so that everything matches up and cut out the second part of fleece.

You should now have two pieces of fleece that overlap to form the inside part of the nappy.

Next, baste the two parts of the microfleece together (I used my machine, but you could also do it by hand).  This is to make it easier to sew all the nappy together.

The opening works better if you have the bigger piece over the top of the smaller piece.

Follow the pattern instructions for adding snaps or velcro to the PUL.

Next sew the PUL to the microfleece, right sides together.  Because of the envelope opening, you can sew all the way around the nappy.

Attach the leg elastic as described in the pattern instructions.  Attach the back elastic in the same way - use the back elastic markings on the pattern as a guide.

Turn the nappy in the right way, and attach the snaps/velcro to the wings and you're done!

You could modify almost any pattern that has a back opening into an envelope opening using these instructions.  If anything is unclear, just ask and I will clarify things.