Second Attempt

Always save your scrap fabric! When you decide that you want to design your own cloth diaper you will need the scraps to practice! PUL gets expensive :-)

My first attempt at creating a pocket AIO diaper wound up turning into a really nice, trim, fitted diaper to wear with a cover. My second attempt wound up looking much more like a pocket AIO, but still wasn't quite right.

In my quest to design a unique diaper I had to consider many things. Velcro, snaps, side closure, front closure, back closure? Hmm. I really like the look of a side snap diaper, so I decided to start there. Well, I just couldn't get it right. We had bulging, puckering, pulling.. and never mind trying to figure out how to fasten it on a wriggling baby! Still, I learned a lot! I changed my pattern considerably. Rather than try to create a full piece template and get it to be equal on all sides, I did a half template to cut on the fold of the fabric.

Using scrap fabric, elastic and snaps, the second draft looked like this:

You can see the stitching marks only because I am using materials that I currently have in my stash and this does not resemble what the final products will look like:-) The blue panel in the second photo is the snap in soaker. This diaper does not have a sewn in soaker, it has a pocket, as can be seen in the third photo above.

This diaper is pretty close. But not close enough. You can see that the side snap closure creates a pucker at the sides. Something I don't imagine is very trim under clothing. Also, I had intended to design a pocket AIO, and alas I forgot to sew in the soaker before finishing the diaper.

Additional attempts at this side snap diaper were not very satisfying. They were either way too bulky, or too snug for a good fit, and, I did not like the look of the added Velcro on the sides. This would have to be a snap-close only diaper. Not a bad thing... but, back to the drawing board.