Soakers!

I confess that I did not use cloth diapers with my kids.  I was just too overwhelmed with all other aspects of motherhood (and a complete wimpazoid, as my dad would say) to even attempt it.  So when Erin's good buddy, Emma, asked me for help sewing some fleece soakers for her sweet little boy, Mark, I was intrigued.  I was even more intrigued when I found out there were no fasteners or elastic in them.  I never realized fleece was this stretchy for some reason.  Emma sent me a link to a tutorial and this was the result:

I used some scraps left over from Peter's fleece Batman pajama pants.  (That's Batman's cape printed across the front of the soakers.)  The print is a little too large-scale for the soakers, but this was just a prototype after all.  I didn't have enough fleece to be able to fussy-cut it properly, but I was able to make the inside "wet zone" layer (which didn't need to stretch any particular way) feature a bit of the Bat symbol. Here's a view of the inside:

There IS an upside-down Batman on the bum.  Yes, better-matching thread would have resulted in the extra wet zone layer being a little less obvious on the outside, but it's not a terrible look.  It's not like the fatal fashion faux pas of the visible panty line.  It's pretty obvious that virtually all babies wear diapers, so I doubt Mark will be embarrassed by kids harassing him on the playground.

So, even though Mark's measurements indicated he needed a size medium, the sheer size of the soakers made me nervous that I had made a size too big.  I also made a size small (using green fleece that I have had for probably a decade, plus the last teeny bits of the Batman fleece).  Here's how they turned out:

View of the back:

And inside (poor Batman is going to bear the brunt of any leakage!!!):

Here is the small next to the medium.  I swear Charlotte and Peter could fit into the medium one, but there's no way I'm letting them try them on.  I figure if the size small is too teeny, Mark's big brother, Ike, can put the soakers on a stuffed animal.  If the size medium is too big, then sweet Mark can grown in to them.  We win either way, right?  I only used fleece I already had on hand and just a bit of thread from my stash, so I won't be bummed even if these don't turn out how Emma envisioned.