Monday, July 21, 2014

Crochet Diaper Cover

I can't believe my little Lucky boy is 9.5 months old!  As his first birthday approaches, I feel okay admitting that I have been preparing for his first birthday party for a while now.  I decided to do a test knit of a diaper cover to see what I thought about using it as his outfit for his cake smash while Lucky was 7 months old.  I found a great pattern plus some fun modifications that I used in the following project.


Most of my crocheting has been in the round.  I've done very little turning and going back and forth, so I was a little apprehensive before starting.  I used a 5.0 mm (H) hook and 24 g of worsted weight blue and 5 grams of green (for the sc border.)


Notes from construction
  • chained 46 sts.  
  • chain 4 before doing the tr (trc?)  I'm assuming that Treble crochet is the same as triple crochet...
  • turn, ch1, for sc's.  I guess you ch2 for HDC and ch3 for DC's.  This is someting I need to remind myself. 
  • 11 sts over to attach yarn.  Ch3, DC1 in the same st, DC24 more.  10 sts remaining on other side.  Follow pattern as directed.   I made this slight change to make the two side edges even.  Otherwise there was an extra stitch on one side.  I'm never quite sure how to do this.  
  • 15 sts remain after row 14.  
  • I like symmetry, so on row 22 I increased on the first 2 and the last 2 stitches (17 sts total).  On row 23 I didn't increase at all.  


My 7 month old is a skinny guy.  He still wears size 2 diapers.  I like the way that these covers can be completely adjustable. 


So I didn't know which side is the right side (RS), so I connected the opposite color where I fastened off, turning the work to continue the SC all around.  


Boy oh boy does it look cute! 



This diaper cover is a little short for Lucky.  In fact, I have to tug it way up to even "cover" the diaper at all.  I think that next time I will try making the band twice as high with 2 rounds of TC's and then use 4 buttons to close it.   I would also make fewer SC's along the sides to cinch the leg holes closed a bit to make that fit better.  


Suspenders would also help a lot, they would keep it from riding down.  I'll whip up a pair and then try it on him again.  I would also place the buttons closer to the outside of the front flap.  And for an occasion I suppose I can fold the tip of the diaper down...  I think I will also make the longer flaps 



Changes to do from the first time 
  • make straps the original size
  • after first DC increase row, increase each additional inc row.  
  • Single SC in each DC on the border around the entire thing.  
  •  have buttons a little further apart.  
Of course, all of these modifications will change when I see how my little boy grows.  It is nice to have one cover as a starting off point so when I'm ready to try this again close to 12 months old I can see how many rows/stitches I think I need to add.  This project when quickly enough that the adjustments shouldn't take too long, even if I end up making two different ones!  

One leg cinched for a better fit?

It turns out cinching the leg isn't really necessary if you make the waist tighter when you put it on the baby.  Making that tighter fixed the leg gaps.  I still will make the straps longer so that it could go over both buttons well next time.  I removed the cinching I did. (This is why slip knots are for winners.)



I ended up folding the straps back over the buttons so it looked a bit neater on Lucky (just over 7 months - not shown)  If I made the straps longer to begin with then I would have been able to put both over both buttons.  



I have many other crafts planned for Lucky's birthday party and not all of them are knitting related.  I will share some of the things that work great (plus some of my flops!)  Do you have any suggestions for a first birthday party?