Elora’s primary school sits on the same green square as our home. Its front playground remains open at all times for the neighborhood children, who fill its square with zooming bicycles and its sand pit with buckets and shovels in this lovely spring weather.

Nova lives in our neighborhood just one street over. She and Elora are in the same class at school, where they became fast friends. After school and through the weekend, they catch every spare moment to play together. Elora spies Nova climbing the playground equipment and hustles to put on shoes. Or Nova rings the bell to ask if Elora can play. Dutch children of 4 or 5 may play outside together or visit a neighborhood friend’s house independently. So, naturally, these two girls have played together A LOT.

Now Nova is turning 6! I know just what she likes, since she has played at our home countless times. Both girls love to play with their baby dolls. I’ve decided to sew some diapers for Nova’s new doll. They play with Elora’s doll diapers all the time at our house, and after all, doll diapers aren’t often so easy to buy.

Together, Elora and I chose fabrics. She gravitates toward everything pink and pretty, which suits Nova as well. I added the Lion print myself, because it’s just too cute for baby diapers.

Sewing doll diapers is super easy, definitely suitable for a beginner. You just want to be sure to make the diapers the right size for the doll in mind. Nova’s new doll is an 18” (43 cm) doll. Fortunately, I found the Willow and Stitch doll diaper tutorial, which is for a doll about that size. It’s a free printable and the pictures are quite good.

I did make some changes to the diaper template. After printing out the template, I trimmed it thinner between the legs to about 2.5” wide. That’s because I’ve noticed that doll diapers tend to bunch up in that area. I also extended the back tabs to make them about 1.5” longer. I think it looks nicer when back diaper tabs wrap around to fasten at the front. Lastly, I rounded the edges on both the front and back diaper tabs. All of these are simple and totally optional adjustments.

You need less than a fat quarter in each fabric to sew a doll diaper, so this is a fun way to use your stash. To give the diaper series a sense of unity, I lined each one in a coordinating Zip stripe by Rashida Coleman-Hale. Fun, fun!

Now together with this sweet wooden baby bowl, we have a gift ready for a very special friend!

Elora is back in school today after two weeks of May vacation. Finger’s crossed that she doesn’t spoil the surprise. The birthday party is on Wednesday, so at any rate miss Nova doesn’t have long to wait.

Here’s to childhood friends!