When repairing elastics doesn’t go to plan

Clean Cloth Nappies admin Jes and her friend embark on a mission to repair elastics and save well-worn nappies from landfill.

Recently a friend and I decided to embark on a journey to repair elastics on her mostly free, entirely second-hand, stash of pocket nappies.

My friend had been having a lot of leaks and from her descriptions, it seemed like a lot of the nappies had expired elastics.

Rather than throwing them away, sure to end up in landfill, I suggested replacing the elastics. We put a date aside and planned a cloth nappy working bee. I had replaced elastics a few times but my friend was a complete novice. 

Gathering supplies

After a quick trip to our local arts and crafts store to collect supplies, including a yarn needle and knitted elastic (superior in my opinion as it doesn’t roll or narrow when stretched) we were ready to go.

Triaging the nappies

When the time came to inspect the nappies needing repair, it became apparent that the nappies were in much, much worse state than either of us had anticipated. The majority of these nappies hadn’t been cared for very well by their previous owners and despite my friend doing a chlorine bleach sanitize when she acquired them and following CCN guidelines, a lot of the nappies were in a sorry state.

We triaged the nappies into piles consisting of:

1. No Problemo
2. Can Still Be Used
3. Can Be Repaired
4. Can Be Repurposed
5. Farewell Brave Soldier

There were several with micro tears and minor delamination, a sign they had lived a hard life, but with good inserts and changing them a little more frequently they would still have some life left in them

Others had one or both elastics worn out but this could be repaired so we piled them up to deal with as a priority.

There were some that the actual polyester had worn through, mostly along the elastic lines in the groins and many of these were no longer safe to be worn due to the risk of pinching skin. These were set aside to be repurposed in another project.

The final group included those that had such severe delamination and tears that they were unable to be repaired or repurposed. Thankfully, there were only 2 or 3 of these.

Repairing the elastics

We divided up the ones that could be repaired and got to work replacing the elastics with my friend threading the elastic up the gussets and myself hand stitching them down by going over the existing seam lines.

We managed to save around half a dozen of the nappies needing to be repaired and whilst my friend still needs to replenish her stash, we were able to save some from landfill and get her son back in nappies with working elastics so she isn’t battling leaks with nearly every nappy.

Whilst it isn’t the happy ending we wanted, my friend now has the skills to repair elastics on her nappies and a better idea of what to look for when buying second-hand nappies. Even though her stash took a bigger hit than expected, it’s still a win in my book.