Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Today is one of those days where I hate Autism...

So I haven't posted in a while, this is neither a knitting post, crochet post, sewing post, and it it isn't even cooking related!

This is just a regular post on why today I hate having a child with Autism(ok I semi-hate today)

Most days we have meltdowns.  Meltdowns are HORRIBLE.  They usually end up with things being chucked, and mostly at me, because I won't find something he lost.  Thanks to having ADHD with the autism, my oldest son is physically incapable of looking for anything that he's lost.  Which on most days is not a big thing, he'll calm down and attempt to find it himself.

Today was NOT one of those days.

Today it was his airplane that he built of out legos, which disappeared overnight while he was asleep.

After a massive tantrum, he switches gears, which is a BIG step for him.

But this change of gears is not good.

He comes down stairs and says, "Mommy, I'm just looking for my fire guy."

Ok fine, I'll entertain this idea, it obviously means nothing is going to be thrown at me and he's being polite.

We start digging through the bins.

But first I need to set the scene.  Anyone who has been to our house knows we have an overabundance of toys.  We have an overabundance of toys because we still have practically every toy that Jacob has gotten since he was 2.  This includes most Happy Meal toys, etc...and in order to get rid of ANY toy that Jacob has "lost interest in", it goes into a "quarantine" stage where we gather it up while he's gone and it sits in the garage for a period of about a month to 2 months.  If he doesn't ask for it in that time frame, it's safe to go to Goodwill, or in most cases the trash.  But this can backfire.  Because Jacob knows EVERY toy set he owns, and I'm being serious.  He knows all the pieces to everything.  So if we want to throw anything out, we have to gather all the pieces to that entire set.  If we miss one piece and he suddenly finds a piece to the set we're trying to toss, all the toys have to come back in the house and we have to start over.  And if we throw away a part to a set and he watches, and then finds the rest of the set, it's a hour crying fit or more about how mean I am and need to buy him a new set.  Not fun.

Don't worry, today's set, I've never tried to throw away.  Jacob is obsessed with ImagiNext and I wouldn't be that cruel.  Except for the pirate ship that he tried to make into a water toy, that thing was rusted shut and had to be tossed, he now takes better care of his ImagiNext.

So we're on the task of looking for the "fireguys" They go to the Firehouse, and he's looking for the fire guys and their suits.

So I start asking questions.

"How many are there?"

"3, but I'm looking for one." he says.

He finds one and 2 suits.  Success!  Without any incident.

"I need to  fine one more." he says, " I can't find it"

So now we start dumping out the bins.  Making a HUGE mess.  I start pulling out random ImagiNext guys.

"How about this guy?  You can just put the fire suit on the guy and poof!  He's a fire guy." I say.

"No....this fire guy is brown" Jacob tells me.

Ok so now we're looking for a fire guy with brown clothes...weird, I thought the fire guys wore grey suits.

We've cleaned out the Expedit bins, no fire guys.  I get excited twice because I hear Jacob shout, "I found it!" twice but both times was followed by, "the fire ax," and the "trampoline".

I now move onto the toy bench, another toy box filled with toys...we don't find anything.  I'm ready to give up and keep trying to get him to change his mind that we can use another ImagiNext but this is not flying.  The guy in swim trunks cannot be a fire guy, he doesn't go to that set.  I finally convince him we need to go upstairs to his room and look.

And after tearing apart his room, there on the floor is another fire guy.  I'm completely frustrated and trying to not show it.  I got worked up and there the guy is on the floor, I get anxious because if the search goes on to long, we risk a temper tantrum and someone always gets hurt in a tantrum.  And I tell Jacob there he is!  All proud because I found 2 out of the 3.

The response I get is classic Jacob, "Well I HAD this guy, but I was looking for ANOTHER fire guy.  He's brown, but I guess that's ok."

So we were never really looking for only 2 fire guys, we were looking for the 3rd fire guy who has a brown painted face.  In every ImagiNext set there are different guys, all different colors.  (White, African American, Chinese, Mexican etc...)

Well when I went to clean up the huge mess that he's just made trying to find the missing piece, I found the "brown guy" behind one of the cubes in the Expedit case.  But it's one of those days where I wish I could just convince him that another ImagiNext guy was ok.

But hey, I didn't have a meltdown during the process, and neither did Jacob, so that means it's a good day!  Well sort of!


Friday, August 10, 2012

How to convert a prefold to a fitted.

I have found that there just isn't a really good blog post on how to convert a prefold to a fitted.  There are several post but some are vague and some just don't have enough pictures.

Well this post will have it all.

First off let's start off with sizing.

Sizing goes off of waist around and rise.

A general rule is that a small or newborn is 12-13inches by 12 inches or smaller. (8-12lbs)
A Medium is usually 14-16 inches around and 15-16 inches long. (10-20lbs)
A Large is usually 18-19 inches around and 18 inches long. (15-30lbs)

A small/newborn size is easily achieved by getting a newborn prefold.
A Medium  usually can be obtained by using your largest prefold.
A large is harder to find because you usually have to buy a toddler sized prefold.  I've only been able to find unbleached locally that is long enough to obtain a true Large size.  I have not been able to know yet what a true size weight limit would be on these diapers, so the sizes listed are a guesstimate to what I believe they will fit.  They could possibly fit more.

So let's get started.

This is how I made a large prefold fitted today.

What you'll need.
Prefolds
Scissors
Snaps or velcro
Serger(can use a zigzag stitch if you must)
elastic
thread
template to cut for diaper
seam ripper

First things first.  Cut off the end of the prefold where it was serged and sewn before.  You do this to expose the insides of the diaper


Then get your "template" or pattern or just wing it.  However you do it, cut out contours for the legs.




Open up and you'll see your diaper is almost ready!

You'll need extended tabs for a large and medium.  You will cut those out of the fabric that you cut out to make the contoured legs.

Next comes all the fun parts.  You'll start making marks to sew in elastic and sew your extended tabs to your diaper.  Your extended tabs will be cut out from the fabric left over from where you cut out the legs.  It should be about 2 inches long.  This cut out will have a fold from how the prefold was made.  This fold is nice because it will leave no seams.  You'll lay the folded side of your extended tab over the prior fold from the original prefold.  You will stitch this fold to the folded part of your prefold to make the extended tabs.  Like this.  First pin it. 


Sew one side on the folded end, then flip the diaper and sew the other side on the folded end.
And you have extended tabs.

Then mark the diaper for your elastic. 
You'll put elastic in the legs and in the back.  The elastic for the back is tricky because there's the prefold pad in the way.

Very gently you'll find the stitching that sews the prefold pad into place.  And you'll take your seam ripper and very gently, not to disturb the fragile prefold cloth, you'll take the seams out in the back.

Like this.
After you're done, you'll have an opening to put your elastic in.
At this point you can choose to do elastic first or put in your snaps.  For me I put my snaps on first.  If your doing velcro you could do this step last.

I marked for my snaps
Most diapers have between 8 and 10 snaps, depending on how wide you want the front of the diaper to be.  I am putting in 10 an inch apart.

Here again it can get a little tricky.  Your snaps need at least 3-4 layers of fabric to be secure.  This prefold is a 4x8x4.(4 layers on each side and 8 layers in the middle)  You'll need a few extra scraps from leftovers from cutting the prefold earlier.


On my first side, when I peel apart the layers, I find that I have a little overage. From where the pad was sewn in.  So I don't need any scraps to secure my snaps.  I just put them on.

I peel apart the center pad, dividing them equally and putting my snaps in.  4 layers on the bottom and 4 layers on top where I place my snaps.  If I'm careful for placing my snaps I won't need to take out the seams in the pad.
When I peel apart the other side, I only have 2 layers on top and 2 layers on the bottom.  To secure my snaps, I need a scrap.


I put a scrap between the layers and carefully put my snaps on.  See done!
So close to being finished now!

I carefully pin all my elastic to be cased.  You can also zigzag your elastic on if you need to.


To sew the elastic into the back, I'm careful to sew the middle part of the prefold, the pad, back into place.  Then I carefully sew along the prior lines I made earlier and where I pinned my elastic in. 




So close now I can taste it!  I then very carefully and very slowly feed it through my serger.

Then after I'm done serging, I go back through and sew the casings to seal my elastic into place.  I'll sew as close to the pad as possible.



For the last step.  Mark and place the snaps onto the wing.  Or sew the velcro on.
And your done.

You have just converted a prefold to a fitted.

This may seem long, but the process is actually very quick and easy to sew up.  Happy sewing!