DIY Corner Drool Pads for Kinderpack

Hello, all!

This is going to be a rambling post on how to make corner, or curved, drool pads for a Kinderpack.

I recently bought a Kinderpack, and I know my little snotballs  darlings like to drool, slime and otherwise mangle the straps of my trusty Ergo, even though they are really too old to be doing so.

So, since I am cheap, I'm making my own protective drool pads.

Since I'm fancy, I involved embroidery.

Since I'm nice, I'm sharing the pattern I made.

****Disclaimer. I am in no way, shape or form a professional pattern maker. Use this at your own risk. It worked for me. I also am assuming that you know how to use your sewing machine, pins, thread, scissors, etc.

Shrug.

So, here we go.

Materials:

• Fabric of your choice - You will need 1/4 of a yard for each side (I used Robert Kaufman Effervescence in Lime for one side, and Kona Cotton in Basil for the other - both were 44" wide - I cannot speak to whether or not a fat quarter would work, I haven't tried it.)
• Batting (You can use thin quilt batting, terry cloth, a couple layers of flannel, polar fleece, etc. I used cotton quilt batting. When I refer to batting in the instructions, I am talking about whatever you chose to put in the middle of your drool catchers.)
• Thread to match
• Closures of your choice (I use Kam snaps and pliers. If you don't have these, you can use hook and loop tape (such as Velcro). You need about 1/3 yard of sew on Velcro if you go this route.)
• Scissors
• Pins
• Sewing Machine
• Ruler
• Pattern (Print it out with no scaling. It is designed on 8.5"x11" paper. The little square should be 1 inch on each side).
  

How to put it together.

**** SEAM ALLOWANCES ARE 1/4" ****

• Cut out your pattern, and cut out your fabric. 
• Make sure that you cut 1 set of fabric with the printed side of the pattern up, and one side with the printing down. Otherwise, you will have issues. The pattern is only for the 'skirt' of the drool pad.
• For the 'body' of your drool pad (the part that actually wraps around the strap) you need to cut out rectangles that are 7" by 10". You need two of the the fabric, two of the batting and two of the backing. *** EDIT: So, thinking about this, you might be better off cutting the body 10.5" or 11" by 7". This will solve a problem later. I'm blonde.
  
  This is my body fabric.   (Remember I said I'm fancy? I broke out my embroidery machine to try to do some of the bubbles off of the fabric. Took ALL DAY to program.)
  
  

This is the backing of my 'skirt' being used as a pattern on my pretty pretty fabric.

• Sew the top of your 'body' together. Start with your batting, then your fabric and backing RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER. Don't bother turning it right side out yet. Mine looks a little wonky because I wanted some of the backing to show on the front side. It will make sense at the end.
  
  
  
• Pin the batting for your 'skirt' to the back of one of your fabrics. It doesn't matter if it's your backing or your "pretty" fabric as long as its on the WRONG SIDE of it. You will now treat those pieces as one pattern piece. For those of you with sewing experience, pretend it's an underlayment. I pinned mine to the back of my pretty fabric.
  
• Sew the  ends of the 'skirt' pieces together. The pattern pieces are labelled A, B and C. Sew the slanted end of A to the larger slanted end of B. Sew the Slanted end of C to the remaining slanted end of B. Do this with the backing fabric, too.
  
  
  
  

Here's where my picture taking got lazy. I have two small children. One is potty training. I live on a farm. It's harvest season. 

Forgive me.

• Pin the top of the 'skirt' to the bottom of your body.  Keep the batting towards your pretty fabric (not a big deal if you don't, but it's the best way to keep track of the batting. Do the same with your 'skirt' made of backing. I screwed up on the pattern and had a little bit of overhang on the short ends of the skirt. You can trim it off. It was about 1/4". ***EDIT: Yeah. If you cut the body a little larger, you don't have this problem, and the pads fit better with the PFA's fully tightened. Again, blonde.
  

• Sew your skirts onto your body. 

• Turn the whole shebang so that the RIGHT SIDES of the fabric are facing each other.

• Sew down the side of the body, across the bottom of the skirt and back up the side of the body. **** Make sure to leave a few inches unsewn so you can turn the drool pad right side out****

• Turn right side out. Poke a chopstick or something (I usually end up using a screwdriver) to make the corners pointy. It should look something like this:
  
  
  

This is the back side of mine. See how it's kind of poufy? We'll fix that.

• Next, topstitch 1/8" in from all edges. This will make it less poufy, more finished, and will close up the opening from turning it.

• Finally, add the closure of your choice. I used snaps, and I didn't get a picture of them. Lame 

**EDIT: Here's a picture on the kinderpack :)

So, was this helpful? Leave a comment!