As we get ready for our second baby, I was having a look at our cloth diaper selection.  Right now, I have plenty of diapers so that I don’t have to wash every day.  I wash every other day, and I have plenty of spares.  Obviously, a new baby is going to go through more diapers.  I’m also anticipating having two kids in diapers at least for a little while.  Maybe my daughter will be potty trained, but I’m planning that she may not.:)  Anyway, I decided it was about time to repair some of the stretched out diapers that I had been holding onto.

This is a stretched out diaper.  I promise you, it doesn’t do the job.  Lol, I was still cleaning up puddles on the floor.

This is a good diaper.  You see how much tighter the elastic is?

If you look closely, you can see a seam line where the elastic is held in.  You want to pick those stitches out.  I find it easiest to turn the diaper inside out.  There should be a little tab of elastic sticking out on each side of each leg.

You need to pick out everything from one end of the elastic to the other.  The elastic itself will probably be sewn in, so you need to unpick those stitches also.  When you get the elastic out, pull it, so you can hear that crackle of dried up elastic snapping.:)  I unpicked both legs of 4 diapers in about 40 minutes, so it’s about 10 minutes a diaper.

Keep the diaper inside out, with both sides flat together, as if you were going to sew around the outline.  Cut a short piece of elastic.  I used about 6 inches. Put the end of the elastic on the outside edge of the diaper.  Outside the seam line that you just ripped out.

You see in this picture the elastic goes over the seam that is actually holding the diaper together, but it is well inside the seam line that was encasing the elastic before.  Attach both ends of elastic at their respective ends of the diaper.

Turn the diaper inside right, and sew the seam shut that you just ripped out.  Now, you want to be sure you don’t run over the elastic, so you may need to make your new seam a tiny bit wider than the old one.  Also, I find the easiest way to sew it pretty evenly is to stretch the diaper (and therefore the elastic)  all the way out, so there are no puckers or gathers.

The sewing itself took about another 10 minutes, on the diapers that I didn’t make mistakes on.:)  So, for the price of a foot of elastic, and 20 minutes of my time, I can have a perfectly functional cloth diaper again.  That saved me at least $10, since I didn’t have to buy a new diaper.  I have some diapers that I did this to a while ago, and the elastic is still holding very well.  My estimate is that elastic should last 2 years or more.  I definitely think it’s worth my time.:)

What do you think, good to know, helpful to use, or tightwad extreme?:)