pile of rags (magic!)

This week's obsessive nesting project:  diaper inserts!  I had already made a boatload of pocket diapers, all of which needed inserts (i.e., something absorbent to stick inside them).  In an ideal world, you use super-absorbent microfiber inserts.  In my world, you scour your house in search of every unwanted piece of of vaguely absorbent and soft fabric to cut up and sew into rectangles.

A bunch of my husband's undershirts mysteriously committed suicide at the same time, so that was convenient.  I also cannibalized a lot of my nightclothes, having decided that I am a grown woman who no longer needs to sleep in bleach-stained t-shirts and body-hating yoga pants.  Then I cut up some yardage of hideous lime green cotton pique that I bought to make Joseph a golf shirt which he has worn twice, under duress.

Here's the neat part:  instead of sewing the fabric into proper diaper inserts (about six layers thick and probably about 10" x 4") I cut them into 8 x 11 rectangles which can be folded to be the right size and thickness for diaper inserts, and can also be used as tiny newborn-sized prefold-type diapers, with another folded rectangle in the middle for absorbency.

See?  I think these will fit better than the infant prefolds we have left over from Joseph.

An added bonus is that the same rectangles, folded up, function as both diaper doublers for older babies and as inserts for the ten million postpartum pads I made myself (free tutorial here!).  And they'll dry faster than a thicker, multi-layered piece of fabric.

To recap:  this is what I have accomplished

• inserts for the newborn diapers
• doublers for the bigger diapers
• prefold-ish newborn diapers for using under covers
  
• pad inserts for me
• everything dries quickly
• my husband's nightshirts do not need to go to the landfill
• no more hideous nightclothes for me
  

Awesome.