Sewing your felted wool pull-up cover

This is to continue the last post on making a felted wool pull-up nappy cover.
Last time we talked about felting an old jumper.
For the next step, it's great to use an old pair of PVC pull ups or something else that fits your baby. Either cut out around it, making it a bit bigger to make allowance for the seams, or if it is a really yucky non-breathable plasticky thing, just unpick the seams and spread it out to make it easier to cut around. Finally a good use for those plastic things.

I used an acrylic wool one and cut in the general shape, making it a bit larger in the process.

If you don't have something you can use, there are a couple of online free patterns for training pants which you could probably use. A good one is here
However, note that this pattern has a seam at the crotch (how uncomfortable would that be!) so when you cut out the paper pattern, join this seam together and keep your wool seamless.

Now, take your cut out woolen piece and sew side seams together. Sew wide-ish hems at legs and waist, to insert pants elastic.

I make mine loose so they fit over massive night-time nappies with added boosters.

Make channels for the elastic, around the waist and around the legholes, sewing by hand if the fabric is too thick for the machine. Thread elastic through.

You're pretty much done, but since you've come this far, why not make a nice cut-out in wool felt (a sheep or something) and applique it on the bottom? :)

I'm going to do that when I finish editing and get a bit of time.

Recycling an old wool jumper into a nappy cover

Making your own breathable nappy covers is really so easy. I wrote in the book that wool covers are the best for night-time use if you are using cloth nappies. They keep baby warm and dry even when there is a lot of wee. And they don't need much washing at all, as the lanolin is a self-cleaning property in the wool. But wool covers are impossibly expensive (worth it, of course, but you can't always buy even what is really worth it, right?) I really wanted some more woollen covers for Torsten to use at night, so I tried what seemed to be a really good idea - felting old jumpers and sewing them into covers. This method is tried-and-true - see a good exposition of it here However, the problem I found was that the jumpers tended to shrink too much for making a toddler-sized cover. Perfect if you're making for a newborn, of course. The other thing is that sewing the cover right up the front, as this method suggests, means you have seams right where baby wees. And seams are where wee can sometimes leak. Aaaaanyway... I found a way out. Enter felted wool pull-ups! I'm going to blog next on preparing felted wool to do this.