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!

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!

Brooklyn Hipster Hoodie

Sewing kids clothes is awesome.  After sewing a few adult things and a somewhat tricky backpack, sewing up this hoodie was soooo speedy!  It reminded me of why I love sewing kids clothes, small, quick and super cute!

I've had this hoodie cut out since KCWC last October, but for whatever reason never got around to finish sewing up till last weekend.  And thank goodness I did, it reminded me why I love this pattern (previously seen here and here!).  It's cute and quick and a great way to up-cycle t-shirts.   It's Jessica of Running with Scissors Hipster Hoodie Pattern, made using stash green knit (also seen in both previous versions!) and a XL women's long sleeve t-shirt.

I wasn't sure about the colour of the stripped shirt at first, but I love it made up.  Mr. Ohm says it makes little M look like a Brooklyn hipster with it almost neon greenness.

It's made up in the 2T size, and it fits my teeny 21 month old with some room (but not too much) I see even more of these hoodies in his future!

I'm inspired to cut out a bunch more kiddy clothes again.

But I've also been motivated by Julia Bobbin's Mad Men challenge!  My plan is a bit ambitious, and not my normal style, but I've loved this dress since first seeing it on the show, and I think it just might turn out awesome.

The plan is to use this fabric

with this vintage 1963 pattern (currently in the mail)

to copy this dress!

Wish me luck.

Where has all this fabric come from?

The fabric I ordered a few weeks ago on Etsy from Fresh Modern Fabrics has arrived!  And boy it's nice looking.  Originally I had just planned to order some of Melody Millers "Ruby Star Rising" Transistor radios and viewfinders for Squiggles.  But then I saw that they still had some of Lizzie House's Castle collection.

Let just say I really really like castles and Medieval stuff, so I had to get some.  For what? Not sure yet, but I wonder if I can pull off making something for me from it?

The other bit of fabric is for a christmas gift.  We plan on a pretty minimal Christmas this year.  We are only buying a few things, the rest I'm making.  And I'm not necessarily making that much either.  We really want to move to quality, not quantity and start to teach Squiggles that he doesn't need to get lots of stuff to have an awesome Christmas.

I also visited a local quilt shop to buy the rest of the fabric for the handmade gifts.  This store stocks some of the nice designer fabrics I see online.  Like Amy Butler, as seen frequently below.

They also had this awesome fabric with a print of an old paris map. Awesome.  And since then, I've seen online that the same collection (3 Sisters for Moda)  includes fabric with old building plans on it.  Even awesomer, I'm hoping they get some of that.  And if so, I will be buying a bunch to make something for me!

I do heart fabric, yes, yes I do...  Anyone else already planning/making Christmas gifts yet?

Attack of the robot pumpkins?

I finally finished one of the other projects I had hoped to complete during KCWC.  Ah well, maybe next time I'll live up to the challenge more.  What can I say, it was a crazy week!

And this week?  Fall is definitely in full swing, which meant Squiggles needed another sweater!  This kid dirties up his clothes like there is no tomorrow, so despite my hopes of keeping his wardrobe trim, it's hard when everything gets dirty so quick!  But at least it is an excuse to make more cute things.

In this case, a robot hoodie!  Inspired by Cirque du bebe's awesome hoodies, I bought the Heidi and Finn Comfy Yoga top pattern.  I've seen their Urban hoodie everywhere in crafty blog land, but I'm still a bit scared of button holes to attempt that one.  But this one was pretty easy!  Except that, like my inspiration hoodies, I used a woven cotton on the outside, with yet more of my stash green knit on the inside.  And, well, just don't look toooo close there are some pulls on the knit that I didn't care to take out :)

Either way, cute no?  Maybe its a bit much as the white background is quite bright, but who cares, I think it's adorable.  Oh and the fabric is I heart robots by Timeless Treasures, designed by Rashida Coleman Hale.  And as I made the size 2, theres room for him to grow into it all winter!

And bonus?  It's looks adorable with the knit pumpkin hat and mittens made by his Auntie at our visit to the pumpkin patch yesterday!

In other news, last week one of our local schools held a fabric flea market.  It was crazy busy, but I manage to snag some good basics like a pile of corduroy for future Squiggles pants, and a piece of pretty knit for something for me for next to nothing.

Not too bad eh?  Now I need to wait for my other recent splurge to arrive in the mail... my first venture into online fabric buying... lets cross our fingers and hope it doesn't get lost in the mail!

Hmm I may just have a fabric buying problem (although I do have plans for it all!), but at least I come by it honestly, ask my sister and mother whats hiding in their closets!

Summer Vacation

Summer is almost over.  Or should I say summer vacation is almost over.  As my teacher husband likes to remind me, summer continues until September 21st!

With September only a week away, my time for projects will likely diminish a bit more.  Squiggles will be starting daycare, and my work hours will get a bit longer, and the days will get shorter, and our spare time even shorter with Mr. Bear back at work.  Hopefully soon, regardless of this, we will find some spare time to do a few long over due clean up and fix up projects on the house.

I also have a slew of sewing and a bit of knitting in the cue for the winter, some for me and more for Squiggles!  But for now, I thought I'd wrap up some of my summer activities.

Our first vacation in July brought us to our usual lake resort.  And with it brought some free time to knit some Monster Chunks!!  With the ever patient assistance of my sister to help me learn to knit in the round, and an emergency trip to the local discount store to buy some stuffing, embroidery floss and felt to finish them of.  And so we photographed them on vacation.

These were from one of Rebecca Danger's awesome free knitting patterns.  I love all of her monsters, and hopefully there are more in Squiggles future.  For now he likes to call them "balls".  But then again that was his word for almost anything remotely round for a while!

Our second vacation in August was to the ocean!

The south Maine coast in particular.  And while we were there and since we practically had to drive past it, a stop at Alewives Fabrics was a must.  And they were successful in forcing me (haha!) to buy this lovely stack of fabric.

There is no fabric store like it anywhere remotely near me, not even in Toronto and Hamilton.  Although trips to three different stores in these cities at the end of our first vacation did garnered me this stack.

And so, just what will I make with all this fabric?  You will just have to stay tuned.  Some of it does have a predetermined purpose, but a bunch does not, so feel free to leave me some ideas in a comment!