A new obsession and How to chop a woven wrap

I've always loved carrying my babies, and had a few different carriers that I've used with M (and still do!), the most used of which was probably our trusty Ergo.    However there was one type that always intimidated me until I found a local babywearing group on Facebook and started to discover all the vast possibilities of... woven wraps.

You all are probably familiar with stretchy wraps (the Boba or Moby is probably the most common) but these are no good after babies get over 15 pounds and have limited use (ie no back carries!).  With woven wraps, as they are woven fabric that does not give (aside from a bit of diagonal stretch) you can carry you baby in a multitude of ways, including back carries with even tiny babies!

Here are a few links that show the variety and awesomeness of woven wraps.

I have a Pinterest Board full of Wrap and Babywearing links
Intro to Wraps at Becoming Mamas
The Wierd and Wonderful World of Woven Wraps
Wrap Vocabulary
And theres a post on sizes and on buying your first wrap by a lovely mom in my local Babywearing Group

Figuring out wovens soon became my new project (I do like me a project!)  And I soon realized, a good part of that was because of the fabric!  Woven wraps are made from such a variety of fabric weaves and they are all beautiful!  Sooo many gorgeous colours and patterns in different blends of cotton, linen, hemp, silk etc.  I now want one of everything..

Here's my little stash so far (and actually another um few have joined the party since this photo).  If you're curious, the are as follows from top to bottom;

Didymos Ginkgos (Cotton, Size 2)
Didymos April Hemp Indio (Hemp/Cotton, Chopped, Size 2)
Oscha Rich Apple Grad (100% linen, Size 3)
Natibaby Graphite Green Gears (Merino Wool/Cotton, Size 5)
Girasol Symphuo, Creme Weft (Cotton, Size 5)
Kokodi Berlin Skyline (Cotton, Size 6)

Now why do I need more than one you ask?  Well, different carries require different lengths of fabric.  I won't go into details here, more info is in the links above.  But these each have their purpose, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it has a lot to do with them being pretty :)

Since discovering this new world of textiles, I've also tried my hand at shortening a wrap, well cutting a long one in half to be specific.  And while I'm pretty used to cutting fabric, chopping a $200 dollar piece of cloth is more than intimidating!  So I thought I'd share what I've learning from the experience.

Why chop it?  It was cheaper than buying two short wraps separately, and I had a friend who wanted the other half.  So we got together one afternoon and cut it up!  I then took it home and sewed new seams and moved some of the tags/markers.  You can use the Sleeping Baby Productions site to figure out what you can get from your long wrap (ie two size 2's from a size 7.)

There is only really one online tutorial that can be found HERE that was somewhat useful but still a bit confusing, so I hope to make it a bit clearer below for anyone attempting this themselves.

How to Chop a Woven Wrap

NOTE: This is assuming you are cutting to use the pieces as wraps (thus need to preserve the tapers), and that your original wrap has tapers, not fringe.  If cutting for a Ring Sling or other use, you don't need to preserve the tapers on both ends and the process is more straight forward.

Preparing the wrap

Remember to Wash and iron your wrap before measuring and chopping.  Wraps stretch unevenly and wrinkle with use making it hard to get a correct measurement.  Washing pulls everything back together evenly and iron removes the wrinkles.

Measuring

As most woven wraps have tapers on each end (forming a long parallelogram) finding your point for cutting is a bit tricky.

1. The easiest way I found was to first fold the wrap in half lengthwise (with the wrong side of the wrap on the inside) and measure along the folded edge (thus the middle) of the wrap to your desired length (if chopping in half I suggest measuring from both sides to make sure they are even).  You need to be very careful that the edges of the wrap are properly lined up.  All wraps have some diagonal give, some (like my Didymos April Hemp Indio) have lots) so you need to make sure everything is straight.  the lines on Indios help as you can make sure the lines on the pattern are lined up.  With others it will be trickier.  
2. You will want to mark you cutting point on the folded edge of the wrap with something that isn't permanent and will wear/wash off.  
3. And then MEASURE IT AGAIN to make sure you did it right.

Measuring for the Tapers

1. Once you have found your length, you'll need to account for the tapers.  The easiest is to fold over widthwise the wrap so the that the end of the folded edge lines up with your marked cutting point on the folded edge (top white arrow in the photo below).
2. You will then need to make sure everything is straight and lined up again and not the points at the bottom edges of the wrap where the ends of the tapers are (red arrows below)  You will need to mark these

Marking the Tapers

1. You will not mark these points on the part of the wrap that you will be chopping which is at the BOTTOM of the folded wrap and on the WRONG side of the wrap.
2. You can see below that the white arrows indicate where I have marked on the wrong side and folded up the wrap to illustrate.  You can also see how I've used the weave/pattern on the indio to make sure everything is still lined up.

Cutting the wrap

1. You will not unfold your wrap with the WRONG side up to show your marks.
2. MEASURE everything again to make sure it's right.
3. You also want to make sure you now have a parallelogram on your cut edge by comparing it to the opposite original edge.
4. You will need to use a cutting mat, ruler and rotary cutter to ensure you make the cleanest and straightest cut.  I would NOT suggest you use scissors, but in theory you could, especially if you have extra length in your wrap in case you make an uneven cut and can redo it.  If you are just chopping in half, a rotary cutter is very necessary.
5. Hopefully you have a long enough ruler to cross the full width of the wrap between the two marks, but if not (like me) you can draw a line with your chalk or whatever before cutting to ensure you stay on target.
6. Go ahead and take a deep breath.. and cut! 
7. Voila, now one wrap has become two!

Moving the Middle Markers and Hemming

I'll defer back to the link above for how to deal with the middle markers  My wrap was a Didymos so it was pretty easy, EXCEPT you need to be extremely careful pulling out the old ones so that you do NOT cut any of the wrap threads.  Slow and steady the say, and cut the threads from the TOP of the label, not underneath.  Also, you will likely be left with little holes or maybe a pulled thread.  Pulling fabric around the spot in different angles, shifting the weave should fix that, a wash will also pull everything back together.  In this case as we were both getting a piece, and there are two middle markers on Didymos wraps, I moved one to each piece.

To hem the cut edge you just need to create a small rolled hem (refer to the original hems for thickness.  Just be careful with wraps like Indios as they fry VERY easily so handle carefully and sew up quickly!

THAT'S IT!  I hope that was helpful and do let me know if you have questions!  I've only done this once so I'm not expert, but regardless I wanted to share what we learned!

Tiny Hats

Two former co-workers and friends of mine also had babies around the same time as little E, and so I wanted to make a little something for them that was all kinda matchy (lame but cute right?)

I had wanted to make E, a Snow Pixie Hat from Sew Liberated, so I decided to make three!

The other two babes are girls, so I picked girly colours for the binding, and a boyish green for E's.

They looks ridiculously cute on, but fit a bit small (E has outgrown his already despite the small size going up to 6 months, but then again he has inherited his Dad's giant head!)

They are pretty quick to whip up, I used organic bamboo fleece inside and a grey knit on the outside with different colour ribbing for the binding/ties.

I know winters nearly over, so hopefully they get some wear out of them yet!

Finally, I made a "Manligan"

I loove cardigans, especially on boys, and waaay long ago when I saw the "manligans" Sophie at Cirque du Bebe made for her littles, I had to make one too!  It just took me a while!

I picked up the red stripe knit at a fabric thrift sale and the blue ribbing is the same I used on the Mr.'s cardigan last year.

The pattern is relatively easy, but not really for beginners.   It's the Darling Cardigan by Owly Baby.  My only slight issue was the knit is pretty thin so a bit tricky to keep in line.  But again I loove having my new machine for knits,  I'm really loving sewing with them now!

But it turned out pretty good! (please ignore the fact the top button is really to high, but it works, oops!)

Now I just need to plan my spring sewing as winter is almost over... right?

38 Weeks

Remember that maternity calendar shirt I made?  It's now gone mini!!

Just like the author of the tutorial I made the shirt from did, I hacked mine up into a little romper for E!  I wasn't ever going to wear the thing anyways, and this way he can get some use out of it, and it'll be a nice keepsake for us (imagine me bringing it out at his wedding? or passing it down to a grand-baby some day?) eek!

This shirt was of particular significance as I had really wanted to make it to 37 weeks with this baby, having had my older son early, and wanting to avoid the extra potential complications/interventions that can lead to and wanting to birth at home (which Midwives here can only let you do after 37 weeks).  I particularly wanted to get to 38 weeks, as that would make things like jaundice even less likely.  And I made it to 38 weeks and 1 day!  And all that work produced one super cute baby (who's now already almost 2 months!)

I used this tutorial to make the romper, pretty straightforward stuff (despite it being in Dutch!)  While I did get my Dutch mother to read it through I didn't really need her too, the pictures and a few quick checks on words with Google Translate were enough.  The only thing it neglects to tell you is seam allowances, but I figure it was meant to be served, so I assumed 1/4 inch.

It came together super quick too, partially thanks again to my lovely new machine!  Hand sewing on the snaps probably took the longest... I really should get snaps to use with the snap press I have lying around!  I had to cut it on an angle to make sure the 38 week number appeared, but it worked!  And he looks darn cute in it.

Girly and purple

I don't often get to make little girl clothes, being the mother of two boys and all.  Thankfully little M has some adorable girl friends who I can make things for.

And one of them just turned three, and loves purple.  Seriously, everything she wears pretty well must have purple in it.  So since last year I made her this purple backpack, I thought I'd use this chance to make a top!  I had some of the polkadots left from my Kobo cover, and a fat quarter of this floral which I thought would be perfect!  And I had just enough, although the skirt of the shirt is in two pieces.

The pattern is one of the many cute patterns coming out of the Peek-a-boo pattern shop, the Hopscotch top, tunic and dress. And it provided the first opportunity for me to make button holes with my new machine, and they were a success!  Now I'm not so scared to tackle some other waiting projects with lots of buttons!

A book cover of sorts

I love books,  especially old, musty ones,  books and fabric are two of my favourite things.  So I feel a bit like I'm cheating when I got an e-reader for Christmas (it's a Kobo, the most common type in Canada).  I love supporting our local book shops and e-readers have played a part in several closing this year.  

But when one is stuck on the couch with a sleeping baby that doesn't like being put down, a nice light e-reader is waaay better then heavy books.  Plus it keeps me away from surfing the net on my phone and buying things I don't need, and is a change from re-watching every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix.

I'm also making a point to really just rent e-books from the library (which I frequent otherwise) rather than buy books for it.  I have had to cut down on book buying lately (no space really!) and so I'll keep my infrequent physical book buying to my remaining local shops if at all possible.

So this Kobo needed a cover, and naturally I had to make one.  I took the opportunity (and the gift cards my lovely family got me) to pick up some gorgeous fabrics from the new local (and seriously awesome, I want to move in there) fabric store Fabrications.   I'm so happy they opened up shop, it's pretty much exactly the kind of shop this city needed, and if they have what I want/need, I plan to buy there!   They now also have an online store set up too, you should all check it out.  The owners are lovely people (they put up with little me loitering around for long periods of time! ha!) and I seriously want to buy everything there.

But for this project I picked up some Echino fabric for the outside and some dots for the inside.  I love how I was able to to use the entire pattern on the outside, wasn't sure it would work, but it did!

 I used this tutorial for the cover, and it was pretty easy to follow, just make sure you keep your seam allowances small or the cover will end up too small.  And what's worse is when you've already cut your corners before turning and then... well lets just say, I had to waste a bit of this lovely fabric and start over.  Oops!

Generally it turned out well, although I seem incapable of making square things like this actually square, but it serves its purpose nicely so I try not to notice its slightly wonky shape :)

I may or may not have picked up a bunch of other awesome fabric from Fabrications that's just waiting to become other things you'll hopefully see here in the near future!

Baby in a Gown

After cutting out in October, I finally got to the last thing on my to do list for fall's KCWC.  What can I say, I'm always a bit ambitious.

I love Growing up Sew Liberated and wanted to make something for the new babe from it.  So I thought I'd try my hand at some more knits (now that I have my new machine with all it's fancy knit stitches!  yay!) And made up a baby sleep sack (or a sleep gown as I like to call it) hehe.

It was super quick and easy (thank you new machine!) And it was actually my first time making a shirt with those cross over shoulders.  They always intimidated me for some reason, I think a fear I'd sew it backwards, but nope, super easy!

The smallest size is a 0-6 months, which on my 5 week old, is just about perfect in length (I'm not sure how tall he is but I'm guessing taller than I think!)  The neck is a bit wide, so I think it I make another, I'll lengthen this size and I figure he'll grow into the neck!

As I suspected, the sack (while a bit of a pain to put on) is super handy for quick diaper changes at night (boy do I look forward to the day when I don't have to change him multiple times at night!)