I wear my baby!

Well, I got just a liiiiiiittle bit creative today and made a baby carrier in honor of International Babywearing Week.

Actually, I wouldn't have had to get too creative if I'd had enough fabric, but I had to do a little sewing to make it work. (and I'm NOT a seamstress by any means!)

A mom at preschool last year told me about wearyourbaby.com and I had forgotten all about it until yesterday, when I saw a blog post about babywearing at Mama Notes. It made me want to try out the make-your-own babywearing wrap featured on wearyourbaby.com. Then I realized I'd probably have to spend a bunch of money on five yards of fabric, and I remembered that's why I never did it last year when I heard about it.

But... THEN I remembered I had this giant piece of green velour stuffed into my craft dresser (Yes, I have a dresser full of craft stuff, but I rarely do crafts. Don't get me started...)
I have no idea where I got this velour. I think maybe I bought it for a project that never happened, but I don't recall what that project might have been. Anyway, the point is, this regal piece of fabric has just been hanging out, waiting for a chance to become something.

So, I decided to use it. But, it wasn't long enough! However, it was more than twice as wide as it needed to be, so I decided to just cut it in half lengthwise, and then cut a chunk off the extra half to add to the other to make it longer. I got it all laid out on the floor and ready to cut, but I had to put the scissors down a few times because I just couldn't cut into that beautiful piece of material! I was so sure I'd screw it up!





Finally, I just did it, and then I dragged out my mom's old sewing machine (she has a fancy new one so she gave me the old one even though I can't sew.) and I used it to sew the extra chunk on for length (and yeah, I used white thread because I don't know how to change the thread on the machine!).

Finally, it was time to try a wrap. I started with the Front Cross Wrap, and it worked! I could actually use a little more length on my wrap to make it tie better, so I'll probably Frankenstein another piece of the velour on to make it a little longer (You can't see the shoddy sewing job when it's wrapped on me anyway). Jordan seemed to like it. We tried it out twice today and he seemed quite comfortable, though it was a tad tight on him because it needs to be longer.



Then I decided to try a different wrap. I tried the Side Cross Wrap, where the baby would be sitting on my hip. And he almost slipped right through. I tried again. And again. And again. And the baby started screaming. And I started sweating. And I gave up.

I picked up the extra piece of fabric and conned Logan into letting me try the side cross wrap on him. Here he is with his "baby."





I still haven't been able to get it down for me and Jordan, though. I can't seem to get his legs in the right spots. I didn't even attempt any of the back wraps or other fancy wraps.

BUT... the Front Cross was very easy and convenient. I plan to lengthen my wrap creation and keep practicing. I can see how this would be convenient on those days when the baby doesn't want to be put down.

So, if you want to try to make a wrap of your own (and there are all sorts of different types you can make; slings, ring wraps, etc.) go to
wearyourbaby.com and play around. I clicked on the box that said "Got $5 and 5 minutes? Make a carrier!" to get started.