Recycled materials

[Charmie981]

I'm looking at the very baby pattern for the new baby's diapers. In the past I've used jersey outers with hemp jersey bodies and/or sherpa or hemp fleece inners. This time I'm thinking of using recycled materials, but I'm not sure about absorbancy and bulk. We have a lot of bath towels that are starting to wear out and my kids don't use flat sheets, so I have some flannel sheets to use too, but I like expensive towels that are bulky, so I'd only want to use one layer of towel. Do you think I could combine one layer of toweling in the body with a microfiber or flannel soaker and have enough absorbancy or should I nix the towel idea and combine some hemp jersey with the flannel from the sheets?

If it helps at all, I've had one normal wetter and one HEAVY, HEAVY wetter.

[mehndi mama]

If it were me, I would use the terrycloth for the outside layer of the diaper (so I could use a snappi if I wanted to) and the flannel for the inner layer. I'd add one or two layers of terry as an internal soaker, and then make some doublers to give them a boost when needed.
I doubt you'll have to resort to buying hemp - what you have should work fine.

Another option would be to make flannel pockets and terry prefolds, then use the prefolds as inserts for the pockets. I've got instructions for making prefolds at http://fernandfaerie.com/frugaldiapering.html - just use 2 squares instead of 4 if you're using the terry.

[KindRedSpirit]

:
I'm wanting to do this too!Just what I need!

[SabDoulaMommy]

I doubt you'll need to buy any new materials either. I made all of my dd's nb stash out of recycled materials. They worked great. Even though I've caught the fabric buying bug now, I still use recycled materials for inners & outters (when its a cute T or whatever).

[~Megan~]

I've not had good results with towels. They tend to form hard balls of lint. The flannel sheets should work well. I'd probably do 2 sewn in soakers of 4 layers each. Over lap them and stitch one on the front and one on the back (or one on each side like a firefly) so they will wash and dry quickly.

[Jenn_M]

I'm using adult sized flannel pajama sets and wool sweaters (all from Goodwill) to make diapers and soakers. I had a bunch of microfiber towels that I'm using for soakers along with Warm and Natural Batting.

[mommy777]

I think your towels would work fine. I might cover the outer with flannel and let the towels be the inner soakers.