Cloth wipes are versatile, gentle on your child, easy to make, and save you money! They can be used for sticky hands and messy faces as well as dirty bottoms, and can be laundered with your cloth diapers or towels. Wet them with plain water or a homemade wipe solution before use. Two dozen wipes is a good number to start out. It sounds like a lot, but once you get the hang of making them you’ll have a stash of cute wipes in no time!

Making cloth wipes is very easy, even beginning sew-ers can make them! They can be made out of almost any fabric you want, as cheaply or luxuriously as you choose. I started making cloth wipes over 14 years ago after receiving a dozen commercial cloth wipes from a friend when I was expecting our second child. I took one look at them and thought “I can make these”, and I did!

First you need to decide what kind of fabric you want to use. I started out cheaply, by cutting up an old towel. You can also use flannel, terrycloth, velour, and diapering fabrics like sherpa or hemp fleece. For really luscious wipes try organic velour, yum!! Two fabrics that don’t work well are fleece and woven fabrics. Fleece just smears the poo around and wovens are too thin to absorb. If you use a thicker fabric you can make one-layer wipes, but thinner fabrics can be used in two-layer wipes. Two layers are cushier and more absorbant, so that’s what I prefer.

Next you need to decide what size to make your wipes. I like 8×8 or 4×8, but you can make them any size you want. My 4×8 wipes fit in an old commercial wipes container without folding, and the 8×8 wipes fit when folded in half once.

Finally, choose the level of sewing you feel most comfortable with. If you’re a beginner, try Easy first and progress to Tricky.

Easy: One-layer wipes are the easiest to make!

• Cut your fabric into squares or rectangles the size you decided on. You can round the corners by tracing a quarter if you don’t want square corners.
• Zig-zag or serge all the way around the edge, removing the pins as you go. Be sure that the “zag” of the stitch goes a little over the edge to keep the fabric from getting raggedy.
• Be sure to backstitch at the beginning and end of stitching, or finish the serge stitch, so the stitching won’t pull out.
• Trim the threads close to the fabric, and you’re done!

You can use different colors of thread or variegated thread for a more decorative look. When I make wipes for my son I like to use up odd spools of thread that I have leftover from other projects.

Medium: Two-layer zig-zag/serged wipes are a little more difficult, but will get easier with practice.

• Cut both fabrics into squares or rectangles the size you decided on. You can trace quarters to round the corners if you’d like.
• Lay one layer with the “right side” down so you’re looking at the back of the fabric.(The right side is the front of the fabric, the side you want to look at and use.)
• Place the other piece of fabric on top of the first, with the right side up and facing you.
• Check to make sure you can see the right side of both pieces of fabric on the outside.
• Line up the edges of the layers and pin all the way around the wipe.
• Zig-zag or serge all the way around the edge, removing the pins as you go. Be sure that the “zag” of the stitch goes a little over the edge to keep the fabric from getting raggedy.
• Be sure to backstitch at the beginning and end of stitching, or finish the serge stitch, so the stitching won’t pull out.
• Trim the thread close to the fabric and admire your work!

If you want a more decorative look, you can use different colors of thread or variegated thread.

Tricky: Two-layer “T&T” (turned and topstitched) wipes are a little tricky, but with practice you can do it!

• Add 1/4 inch to each side of the wipes when you cut them out. (That means that if you want 8×8″ wipes, cut the fabric 8 1/2 x 8 1/2.)
• Cut both fabrics into squares or rectangles the size you decided on, remembering to add 1/4 inch. Leave the corners square, it’s easier than rounded corners.
• Lay one piece of fabric with the “right side” up and facing you.(The right side is the front of the fabric, the side you want to look at and use)
• Lay the other piece of fabric on top of the first with the right side down.
• Check to make sure that both pieces of fabric have their right sides together on the inside.
• Line up the edges and pin all the way around. Be sure that you can see the WRONG side of the fabric on both sides of the wipe.
• With a straight stitch, stitch almost all the way around the wipe, about 1/4 in from the edge.
• Stop about 2 inches from where you started sewing, backstitch and cut the threads.
• Trim each corner near the stitching so it’s not bulky when you turn it right-side-out.
• Carefully turn the wipe right-side-out through the opening you left.
• Fold the edges of the opening in so they’re inside the wipe and the outer edge is straight.
• Pin the edges of the opening to hold it closed.
• Straight stitch all the way around the wipe less than 1/4 inch from the edge, making sure to close the opening. (If you stitch too far away from the edge you won’t close the opening and those edges will flip out and get raggedy.
• Remember to backstitch when you begin and end stitching.
• Trim the threads and admire your work!

You can also try zig-zag stitch or another decorative stitch instead of straight stitch on the outside of your wipes. Variegated thread doesn’t work well for straight stitch, but using coordinating or contrasting thread colors makes the wipes look nice.

Have fun making lots of wipes for your child! If you make clothing or dipers you can make matching wipes for your child with the fabric scraps.

My Mom always said that we should be given practice babies before we got the “real” ones, just to figure out what we were doing as parents. In my family I was the oldest, the practice baby. I was the one who had to wear tights until I was 13 and couldn’t cross the road alone until I was 21. Well, not really, but it sure seemed like it. The worst was getting my first pair of Nikes in 8th grade but my younger brother got them in 5th grade. Not fair!

Our practice baby is College Boy, now almost 18. When I got pregnant with him I was in college and 18 years old - just a year older than he is now, which freaks me out. (I’m not ready to be a Grandma, I’m not ready to be a Grandma, I’m not ready…) When he was born I was 19, Teacher was 21, and we’d been married all of 5 months. We didn’t know much about child development or parenting, we followed our hearts and began our journey into “attachment parenting”.

College Boy was born at 38 gestational weeks. He was only 4 lbs, 4 oz and didn’t know how to suck. Luckily he was “done cooking” and was only on a respirator for about an hour, and in the NICU for just under a week. I remember looking at Cabbage Patch Kid clothes and thinking that they’d fit my baby perfectly. My Mom was terrified when she first saw him because he was so little, but to me he was just a tiny baby. Ignorance is bliss!

The nurses taught our little one how to suck from a bottle while I used the hospital pump to collect milk for him. I don’t remember when we got together, but we breastfed for several months before I weaned him. I stopped early because I didn’t know any better, I didn’t know about La Leche League and my doctors didn’t tell me much about breastfeeding. I was afraid I’d get pregnant right away, I was worried he wasn’t getting enough to eat, I was feeling weird being married in college… with a baby… and breastfeeding. Oh, if I knew then what I know now! I tell myself that I did the best I could at the time, and that some breastfeeding is better than none. But I still wish I’d had the support to stick with it longer.

Our first baby was a high needs baby and cried inconsolably. At the time I thought he was a typical baby, I “knew” he didn’t have colic because colicky babies cry at certain times of the day, but he cried all day. Ha-ha, little did we know! Teacher and I took turns holding him, bouncing and walking the tiny space of our apartment. Somewhere we got a baby carrier, I don’t even remember where, and both of us wore College Boy all day. Some of my fondest memories are of my husband walking around campus with our son in the carrier.

We co-slept on and off, from what I can remember. I do know he was in bed with us during the months I breastfed. We had a small bed and I was always afraid I’d squish him in my sleep so I tried to get him to sleep in the bassinet, he was so small he fit in it for 6 months. I would walk or rock him to sleep then lay him gently on his stomach (the preferred position then) and back away slowly. Most of the time he’d wake up so I’d start over. Some nights he’d fall asleep on his Daddy’s chest, or on my shoulder. If we’d known the benefits of co-sleeping I’m sure we would have embraced it, but we were learning as we went along.

One of my favorite pictures is of my sweet husband leaning against the headboard feeding our tiny baby with a teeny bottle of my milk. The bottle couldn’t have held more than two ounces, and the tender look on Teacher’s face still touches my heart. I wouldn’t give this “practice baby” up for anything. We were poor, we were young, and we were naive, but we loved each other and our son - what’s more important than that?

Hello, I’m Amy Sue, the Zany Zebra Mama.

I’ve been working on the presentation for this blog for over a week and can’t wait any longer to start writing! Eventually I’ll get the rest of the kinks worked out, but I have tons of ideas I want to write about and share so I can’t wait. I hope you’ll stop in often for great information about young children and the things that are important in their lives.