I aspire to be a decent quilter. Admittedly, being a stay at home mom to two pre-teens doesn’t exactly leave me room to sew. I try to get some in once and awhile, but I haven’t really honed my skills. With that in mind, I am also a fan of saving as much money as I can. Every little bit helps. I found tutorials for making your own Swiffer sweeper pads. How cool is that?! Then, the down side. The ones I found were fairly vague. I, being a creature of order and conciseness, did not find this acceptable. So, with no further ado, here is my own structured tutorial.
I started with ¼ yard of No-Pill fleece from Wal-Mart. I am sure you can get it anywhere, but again, I am cheap. According to my handy-dandy Quilter app on my phone (finally, a reason to use it!), I am seeing that, depending on how I cut it, I can get 8 or 9 pads.
Cut your fleece at 7 inches by 18 inches.
Fold both ends onto itself at 3 ½ inches.
(Now this is where I had a bit of trouble figuring out what I was doing. Originally, I sewed at ¼ seam allowance and determined that it left too much slack in the pad, at least in my opinion.)
Sew at ¾ inch seam allowance.
On my machine, when the needle is sewing dead center, this seam allowance lines up with my 1 inch mark. (The foot on my machine is a 1/4 presser foot. I use this foot for quilting and for the most part never take it off my machine unless required.)
Trim to ¼ inch seam allowance. (This step is not required, but I don't like the extra bit, so it is really your preference.)
And you are done! The finished product will be snug to get onto your Swiffer, but will work. In fact, you can tuck your new Swiffer in to the holding clips and it will pull the sides of the pad up slightly to cover the exposed edges. (If you couldn't tell, I really like pink....)
I assume this method will work for making Swiffer wet jet pads, but don’t quote me on that. I will be attempting to make some here shortly.
Happy sewing, cleaning, and saving!
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