Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Swiffer Wet Jet - refill pads

Let's face it, the Swiffer Wet Jet pads are expensive! I've been meaning to try my hand at making reusable ones for quite sometime and then today, after a play date which included ten 1-year-olds and Christmas cookies, I was down to one pad. One pad for three rooms. It was time!

First I collected an old towel from the upstairs bathroom and a pretty piece of flannel I've been wanting to use. I also grabbed some velcro. I love the thin velcro that has the loops on one side and the hooks on the other.
Using my one remaining disposable pad for a pattern, I cut out pieces of the terry-cloth towel. (The pieces measure about 12" x6".)
And the matching pieces of flannel.
I divided up my velcro into four pieces for the four pads I was making. This only allowed me enough velcro to put a square in each corner of the pad. I thought in the future I might put an entire strip of velcro across the top and bottom. However, when I used this later it worked just fine with the smaller amount.
I stitched each piece of velcro onto the flannel. A bonus of using the double-sided velcro is that the hook side attached to the flannel, keeping the velcro in place without pinning.
I attached the flannel to the terry cloth with a wide zig-zag stitch around the edge.
I thought that would be the final step but, upon use, the front tended to roll up blocking the jets. So I went back and made another stitch line, boxing in the velcro. This solved the problem.
I think my new pads work even better than the disposable ones!!!

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

and more baby gifts!

I've been working on some goodies for some friends' new little ones recently. And now that they've received them, you get to see them too!