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Making Cloth Pads Which Style? Underpants Fabrics - Tops - Core - Waterproof - Backing On a Budget Patterns Design your own Pattern layout Pattern Resizing Construction - AIO Hidden Core - AIO channels - Pocket Pad - Base+Insert - Fold-up pad - Boostable pad - Belted pad About Cloth Pads (At www.clothpads.org) About Cloth Pads How to use them Cloth Pad Washing Pros & Cons Cloth Pad FAQ Tips and Help Where to buy Pads Starting a Stash Selling Pads Cost of Pads Pad History |
This type of pad consists of an empty "case", "envelope" or "pocket" that has an opening on the underside, with absorbent inserts that you place inside the pad as its core. You can have these inserts as a basic oblong shape, slightly winged or a rectangle of cloth that you fold to place inside.  It should look something like this - flat top and a back consisting of 2 overlapping halves  You can add waterproofing to this by making the backing from PUL or other waterproofing, or you can have a separate layer of waterproofing sewn to the backing, or you could back one of the inserts with waterproofing. or simply cut a piece of waterproofing and put it inside the pad (after the absorbent inserts have gone in) if you need to The advantage of this type of pad is that you can make several of the pocket parts and several inserts and use as many inserts as you need in the pad. So that rather than making yourself several light, medium and heavy absorbency pads, you could make sets of these and on light days use one insert, 2 inserts on medium days and 3 inserts on heavy days. The inserts are generally faster drying too as there is less fabric in them than a standard AIO pad. If your inserts are foldup ones, they will be even faster drying. You would change the whole pad with this style of pad, you would not just replace the inserts. Making the pad 1). Cut out your pocket case pieces - 1 top and 2 backs per pocket pad. You can use 2 layers flannelette/flannel for the top if you wish, to give you more absorbency and make the pocket a little more sturdy. You could also use one layer of terry or natural fleece, jersey or other fabrics. If you wish to have waterproofing as the backing, cut the back pieces from waterproofing. If you wish to put hidden waterproofing in the pad (Waterproof layer inside but a different fabric on the outer), cut pieces of both the waterproofing and backing fabrics using the back pattern. As with an AIO, a fleece waterproofed pad should have the fleece exposed, not covered up. So you should have 1-2 top pieces, and a set of 2 back pieces (additional set if hiding your PUL)
4). To make the inserts it is easiest to just overlock/serge/zigzag around the edges of them. Either make them in a shape to just fit in the centre of the pad (either straight or contoured to make a narrower crotch if your pattern has a wider front and back), or use a rectangle a bit shorter than the length of the pad, by 2 or 3 times as wide as you'd like the crotch to be (depending on if you want it to bi-fold or tri-fold)... or even an insert with a small wing to give leak protection off the side. You could even make a very quick drying insert from 2 layers of flannel/flannelette wide enough to fold in half, then once it's folded in half it can be tri-folded into the insert... to give a very quick drying insert that ends up with a lot of absorbency.  |
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