I have been avoiding this post for quite a while. My life seems to be full of stories that will keep grandchildren enthralled for years with their whimsy, danger, bad choices, and absolutely absurd coincidence that would bring most to tears, but we aren't here to read about stories of my crazy adventures. We will start the story with my kiddos and my quickly growing work at home business.
When my daughter (the tot) was about 9 months old I was introduced to cloth diapers. I tried a couple covers and pockets from ebay. They were cheap, didn't work very well, and were poorly made. Despite the rocky start, I loved cloth. I started reading and buying mostly commercial pockets.
A few months later, I started reading into work at home moms. It had never occurred to me that there were moms who made these super rad contraptions, and they WORKED!?
I started with a couple diapers from moms in my cafemom.com group, cuties with cloth booties. They are still in my scope, despite my lack of attendance in the group as of late. I loved the minky, the prints, and OMG I could have a diaper with bacon print on it!!! I was totally hooked.
I liked the work at home mom ones, and I liked the commercial ones, but I wasn't in love. All had one or two things I wasn't so sure about. The fit wasn't right on the legs as kiddo grew, or the pocket hole was the wrong size for my hand. My list of little things continued, until one day I looked at my dusty sewing machine and wondered...
*Let me digress for a minute here. I used to make my own hippie skirts, purses, and basic items. I had some basic sewing skills.*
I figured, "Meh. how hard could it be. there are a ton of tutorials on the interwebs about it. If they could do it, so could I."
This statement is still laughable today. I started with one little flannel thing that vaguely resembled a diaper made by a blind monkey with arthritis. I vowed to never let it see the light of day, nor tell anyone of this horror I had created in the name of cloth.
I was determined at this point. I was not going to give up on this. It was a cloth diaper suicide mission. First time was a total and utter failure, but I've been down and out before. I've been trampled before, and by all things holy I was going to make a beautiful diaper, like the ones my friends made, even if it killed me. There is a part in the movie "Julie and Julia" where she loses her sh** and falls to the floor crying and spewing incoherent ramblings of feeling like a failure. That was me. I had read, and studied patterns, and got my supplies together, and I failed. miserably. It was horrible, but I wasn't going to give up. My poor husband helped encourage my journey, and has been nothing but supportive of my whole venture, bless his heart. Perseverance wins. It has to.
It took me a year. After a year of sewing almost daily, I had finalized my own pattern that had worked out all the kinks I disliked about all the other diapers I had used. A pattern that would actually fit a 10 lb baby, as well as a 35+ lb toddler. It also had to actually absorb as well, so I had to test out all the absorbent fabrics, stay dry fabrics, waterproof fabrics, and prints to see what the best and worst were. Once these were all done, and my tags and legal mumbo jumbo was tackled, I was ready to sell.
I did it. I didn't die. I had finished my masterpiece. It went through The tot potty learning, to my son (bub) now starting to potty learn at 2! Some of these diapers are now starting to lost their stretch...after 2 years! They're still working their fluff off.
In my journey selling cloth I have encountered so many other moms. I don't make much doing this. I could probably find something else to make more, but this... This keeps me close to other moms. It forces me to drop my lonely mom anxieties and talk to other moms. talk to them about something we all have in common; the love of cloth diapers, the love of our children, and the love of other moms.