As some of you know I cloth diaper my little girl. There was a time when I spent all of my spare money (which as a stay at home mom I do not come by with a desirable frequency) on diapers and accessories. I received two free bamboo velour wipes with a wetbag purchase one day and after just one swipe across a poopy bum I was sold. I proceeded to order a few ever couple weeks until i had enough to use as diapers, wash clothes and after meal cloths. And then the unthinkable happened; I lost almost all of my wipes in the move. Along with some diapers, wool pants and other cloth diapering goodies. I have been using the same six? since and let me tell you six do not go far when you use them for wash cloths as well. So when a mama on livejournal offered to sell me a couple yards at a good price jumped ta the chance to make my own. Yeah. Let me just say I am happy to be done. But! I am happy to have fourteen new wipes to wipe my snot nose with because just as I was finishing the wipes on day two I came down with a bigger, badder version of the cold Wednesday had at the beginning of the week.
I backed the wipes with repurposed t-shirts and a tank top. Sounds easy enough right? Wrong! Sewing stretch fabrics is not for the novice sewer I say. I say! I consider myself an okay seamstress. Amateur at best but the stretch fabrics took a level of patience I did not know I had. So I thought since I took pictures along the way I would turn it into a tutorial. "A tutorial for simple wipes?" you say? Well, more a tutorial for repurposing old clothes as wipes and some hints for sewing two stretch fabrics together.
Sew, on to the tutorial. For those of you who do not like scrolling through mega picture posts here is a link to the tute on my flickr.
Old t-shirts and tank tops. Stains are really of no issue because wipes get stained, and fast. See that white and pink tank top? It is a ribbed a-line top. Don't use it. That fabric gave me the most trouble.
Cut wipes to desired size plus seam allowance. Pieces pictures are roughly 8.5" square. Pin them right sides together. If you are using just t-shirts and no second fabric, you can turn the shirts inside out and trace the pattern on one side and cute two and go straight to pinning.
When you have pinned enough. Add more. Stretch materials move...a lot!
Give yourself at least a 1/2" seam allowance and a one inch opening to turn the fabric right side out. I found putting the the opening in the middle of a side seam made sewing the seam and corner easier.
Because you are sewing stretch fabrics, and I can only assume you are a novice like myself because you are reading my tutorial you will most likely have to trim your edges a bit after sewing due to the stretch factor of the stretch fabric.
Turn the fabric outside right and use a chopstick or something similar to get into the corners.
After you have turned out your fabric and your corners look dandy pin the opening shut. I found an excessive amount of pins worked to keep the opening shut because sometimes I did not give myself enough of a seam allowance.
And yet more pinning. For serious. (It keeps the seem neatly between the two fabrics.)
Voila! A beautiful cloth wipe for your baby's bum or face and/or hands.
Now, do that all again thirteen more times like I did!
Don't forget to take pictures like anyone but your mom cares!
If you want to when your done making your wipes you can add them to the flickr pool Love of Cloth.
EDIT: If you do not have the inclination to sew some yourself but are seduced by the brilliance of bamboo velour you can alway buy some from Sarah's Stitches. That is where I bought mine and the price is so reasonable that if I hadn't been recently obsessed with sewing I may have just bought more.
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