Time to stop whining and do something!
I took an old cotton knit dress and starting hacking away at it.

Unfortunately , after working for 30 minutes, my 20 month old discovered what I was doing and further hindered any progress. Hopefully I’ll get to the sewing this evening when the hubby is here to keep the toddler occupied.
Here’s what’s done so far. ![]()

Tag Archives: t shirt reconstruction
Finished Diapers
And more diapers
You are so sick of posts about diapers right? I have more interesting projects coming up. Right now I’m dealing with a need issue as my toddler has outgrown all her medium diapers and has only 12 large diapers. That’s too few for my liking. So I again copied Motherease and made a paper pattern of the One-Size style diaper.
I had a $2 cut of stretch terry from the thrift store that yielded 3 diapers and overnight soakers . I used a pink t-shirt for the binding and they turned out not too horrible.
Just wanna say again how much I prefer snaps over velcro. When babies are small, the velcro is fine. As they get to be toddlers they like to undo the velcro just for fun. It drives me crazy. But these will be overnight diapers so we shouldn’t have that issue since she’ll be sleeping in them.
100 t-shirts into cloth diapers
How’s that for a title? I was going to call this “The super big project I’ve been working on” but it just wasn’t as catchy.
My sister is having her first baby and informed me that she wanted to use cloth diapers. Yay! So I promised to make them for her as the baby’s gift.
Well, I decided to make 18 smalls(7-11lbs), 18 mediums(10-22lbs), 4 covers, and 36 cloth wipes. Each diaper required 3 cotton t-shirts. I needed 9 t-shirts for the wipes. So that’s over 100 tees needed. Luckily I know a church thrift that sells them for $.10-15 each. It’s a significant investment of time finding the tees, since there are just piles of clothes to go through, but I enjoy treasure hunting.
So the last few weeks I’ve cutting all the pieces needed for this project. Each diaper has 4 pieces. The soakers for each diaper need 8 pieces. Wipes are 2 pieces each. All in all I needed about 500 pieces cut. They’re almost all cut out now(just a dozen inserts left) and I’ve have started sewing.
I need to finish by Thanksgiving.
Work in progress:
Blue jean cloth all-in-one diaper, Denim AIO
Well I was hit with the creative bug this week so I finally pulled out the PUL(har-har!) I bought months ago and decided to make a denim all-in-one diaper. I used my regular diaper pattern that you’ve seen in other posts. I did have to change how I added the velcro and elastic to keep any threads from wicking moisture through the layers but it wasn’t too hard to make those modifications.
I used the PUL for an interior fabric layer so the outer would be denim. An old pair of lightweight jeans and a t-shirt made this project very frugal.
Next time I’ll be sure to cut the outer pieces a tad larger than the interior pieces so that it rolls ever so slightly to the inside. It still turned out really cute for about $2 worth of materials.
More homemade fitted diapers from t-shirts
I used the Fern & Faerie pattern again to make some medium sized diapers. My little one grew out of the smalls in 4 weeks. I guess then that smalls fit 8-12lbs. I think the smalls would have fit longer if the side flaps were larger. So I enlarged them for more waist room when making the mediums. I also skipped the top stitching. So far I don’t see it affecting functionality.
It took 22 cotton knit clothing items to make 7 diapers and 14 inserts. Notions cost $2.50.
Newborn Baby Bloomers from T-Shirts
Our baby is a surprise and will be born in a very warm month so I made the easiest and coolest going home outfits I could think of. The baby will come home in a side snap t-shirt and bloomers.
I used a newborn diaper cover to draft my pattern and used two super soft tees for the fabric.
The boy’s has just a simple blue check bow.
The girl’s is my first time trying a ruffle bottom. So cute!
Sleeping Cap Prototype
I’ve wanted a sleeping cap for years so I did some internet browsing to find a shape that might work for me. I chose a basic stovepipe. I used an old t-shirt and cut two circles and a large rectangle(head circumference X 16 inches with seam allowance). I folded the rectangle in half lengthwise and sewed the raw edges to the double layer circles. Then I sewed the back seam. 15 minutes start to finish.
It’s very serviceable and comfortable but I look truly frightening in it. So I need to find a more suitable style so I don’t scare my husband and kids.






















