My Sewing Blog

I decided I'd challenge myself to make 50 items for my shop this August. And it's August tomorrow! I also decided I'd go on a diet in August (ugh!!). Hopefully I'll be so busy making things that I don't have time to snack. I finally managed to order the fabric and snaps I need to finish/make new things. None of them have arrived yet but I still have some things I can get on with tomorrow. I wanted to finish the covers I started, and the pocket nappies I've embroidered. I tried to order a load of bamboo fleece so I could finish off the fitted nappies I started but again nearly everywhere was out of stock. I tried to order 3 metres from one place but they only had 1 metre left in stock. Hopefully I'll find a source and manage to finish them this month. I want to make some more cloth pads and then some wet bags and some of those little hanging strap things you can snap to your pads. Or nappies I suppose. To make 50 items I figured I'd have to make 7 of ea...

I've been working on some more things for my shop. I've been a bit short of cash so I haven't been able to buy more snaps and wicking fabric to finish them all yet. I also need bamboo for a bunch of fitted nappies I've cut out. I've discovered that I have no clue how to run a business. I'm not sure how to budget. So far I've used all the money I've made to buy new fabrics or supplies. I haven't quite figured out how I'm supposed to make a profit yet. Surely there will be a point where you've built up enough supplies that you can actually keep some of the money you make? I'd like to have some spare cash so that my kids can go swimming and stuff during the summer. I have tons of scraps of PUL and hate throwing things away, so I thought I'd trim the scraps down into squares and sew them together to make some covers. I don't recommend doing this because it takes forever! I'm not too sure how well they'll work either because ...

I haven't been working on much shop related stuff this last week. It's a bit blah really. Etsy is making some changes to their site, and their fees, and it seems to have been a very quiet week. I don't know if it's Etsy or if it's just me. Views in my shop have dropped. Like practically all week, they were next to nothing. Since I opened my shop people have been complaining on the Etsy forums about how their views and visits have dropped. People are saying their shops are much quieter than they usually are and they're making less sales. Maybe Etsy isn't the right place to sell on? I sold some sewing magazines and patterns I had (not on Etsy) and I was going to use the money to buy more fabric to make stuff for my shop, but now I'm not sure. I have no idea what I should work on. I was planning to get some more PUL for embroidered nappies, but I haven't actually sold any of the ones I've made so far, so maybe it's not a good idea. But then ag...

According to Blogger, this is my one hundredth post! Things are looking up since the last time I posted. The problem of the leaky nappies has been solved. They just need slimmer fitting inserts. I'm really glad! I think maybe I jumped to worst case scenario, especially since other people I asked about it were suggesting maybe the suedecloth was repelling or the PUL had de-lamination issues and pretty much every single thing in my shop was made from the same fabric! I'm think I'll have to make some inserts for the remaining Rocket Bottoms nappies so that no one else has the same problem. Inserts really aren't difficult to make, but the fabric to make them seems more expensive than gold! I just bought a metre, thinking it would be enough for several but it shrunk, dramatically! It's just under 80cm now, so it's shrunk by 20%. I also ended up talking with a certain unsupportive person in my life, who claimed that they never said anything unsupportive to me. The...

Things have been very busy here lately. E passed her driving test! We bought a new car (well, an old car, but new to us) and M started a job doing nightshift. The boys have all had man flu. I have done some sewing though. Mainly just finishing off the things I've started. I've had to remove all the Rocket Bottoms nappies from my shop because a customer who bought some contacted me to say that they were all leaking. Eek! I need to figure out what's wrong with them. It could be the design, or it could be the fabrics. Or maybe it's something I did wrong. I must have sewn around 200 nappies in my time, so I'd like to think I wouldn't have made some kind of stupid mistake. I'm sending one to someone else to check out and see if it leaks for her. I'm remaking the customer's order using the Opulent Monsters pattern, which is wider through the crotch so should work better with the inserts she has. Hopefully I'll be able to salvage the Rocket Bottoms napp...

I finally finished the embroidered nappies! These are from the Opulent Monsters diaper pattern. Of course, I'm not happy with them! The designs are all too high up, and I messed up the PUL pocket for the embroidery. I layered it up wrong, but the backside of the embroidery is fully enclosed inside the PUL pocket, which is probably the most important thing. I'll sell them all at a discount though, since they're not perfect. After talking about how great the design for the pocket in this nappy was, I re-read the instructions and realised that I sewed it wrong. Here's how it's supposed to look. I'm not sure I like it this way. One of the advantages of sewing it wrong was that you could hold the nappy by the wing and the insert would just slide out. This way you actually have to open the pocket and rummage around to pull the insert out. I also think the PUL panel is a bit too large. The whole front section of the nappy is now waterproof, which isn't much good ...

When I was looking around at patterns and links for all things cloth pad related, I couldn't seem to find anything about the costings for making your own. Since I plan to sell them for profit, knowing how much they cost to make is important. I'm not sure I've got it quite figured out yet, but here's what I have so far, in case it helps someone. The base has two layers of flannel (or flannelette as it's sometimes called, or winceyette or brushed cotton!). There's also a layer that backs the topper piece. I was able to cut enough pieces (top, bottom and base of topper) from one metre to make 9 pads. That was 9 assorted size pads, so I can't say how many regulars or XLs etc you could make from a metre. The flannel I bought was £3.60 per metre, making each pad cost £0.40. If you picked a fancy quilters flannel or designer/organic flannel then it would be more like £12 per metre. That would almost triple the cost per pad. For the topper I used a printed flann...

I think I've had my shop open for about a week now. I've not had any sales. I'd read that a lot of people go several months before making their first sale, so I wasn't really expecting to sell anything. My shop has 49 views and 16 visits so far. I think half of those visits were from family though! A few of my nappies have been viewed 5 times now. Someone also marked my shop as a favourite which was really exciting! It's all quite nerve wracking really. I keep checking the stats and worrying I'll never sell anything, and at the same time I'm hoping that I don't sell anything in case people don't like my stuff and leave bad feedback. I found a site called Etsy Rank, which analyses your keywords etc. Apparently there is a low demand for pocket nappies. I kind of figured that. It says the competition is medium, although it includes the whole of Etsy, and I know there aren't as many UK sellers as American ones. I joined the dreaded f-word. That...

This is the pattern that I've used to make the nappies I'm selling in my shop. It's a one size pattern, with a snap down rise. When I was making nappies for my own babies I don't think I ever made one with a snap down rise. I did use the Kayla's Cloth Kits one-size pattern a lot, but my baby was big enough when I made them that I never needed to use it on the smaller settings. This is really quite a trim fitting pattern, so think it might be quite difficult to stuff. I love the idea of having a different colour fabric on the wings though. It really jazzes the nappy up and if you cut the pattern without the wings you can get more cuts out of your fabric. The wings can be made from scraps. Prints with an accenting solid, or solids with a print on the wings look good too. The pattern has a welt pocket for putting the inserts in, and I absolutely hated making it! I felt like it looked kind of messy when it was finished too, so I changed the way I did that. I made m...