Monday, August 31, 2009

Mr. Floppy fixes wing droop

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Today with the assistance of Mr. Floppy I'm going to show you how I fixed wing droop around here. Yes, that's his given name and no, I didn't name him.

We've been cloth diapering since my oldest was six months old so going on five years now. About six months after we started, I decided to start sewing diapers myself. Just ours, not for sale and thank goodness because that is enough. Diapers are sort of fiddly and they are definitely monotonous, production sewing. The last time I made some new diapers I added some length which was needed for the upper size range but also somehow created a bit of wing droop. What's wing droop?

The picture above is what a diaper looks like when I put it on the baby. The diaper below is what the diaper looks like after the baby spends a good bit squatting and rolling around the floor. The wings of the front panel get pulled down with her leg movement and it's not pretty, nor functional. I finally decided to do something about it the other day.

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I grabbed a diaper. These diapers have seen at least 15 months of continuous use and are washed about every other day. Right now they are being used by two kids so to say that they are a bit used is an understatement. My diapers have four sets of snaps on each side. I figured that in order to fix the wing droop I've been having when using the inner first and second set of snaps I'd need to add a hip snap on a skipped snap setting.

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Sounds kind of funky but let me explain. I snapped the diaper on the innermost setting.

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Then I felt around with my fingers for the snap two snaps away from that setting (skipping one snap setting). I marked those two spots. This allows me to use the hip snap for the snap settings that produce the most wing droop (the first and second innermost positions).

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I went over to my trusty snap press (the kids get a kick out of this every time).

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Set the snaps, then repeat 29 more times.

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No more wing droop and Mr. Floppy can go back into retirement. I've already modified the diaper pattern I use for a side snapping version to prevent wing droop in future versions.

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