Tablecloth Mei Tais!

This is a post to share some of the resources and fine-tunements I've used to make my new, absolute favorite carrier. I am sharing a link to a shop on etsy from which I bought a pattern for a soft structured carrier, and I know it might seem obnoxious to withhold information about how I completed THIS one, but since a lot of it is from her, and I respect her time/work/intellectual property, I am not going to give out tons of details about my waistband and body panel design, just some specifics on things that are unique to this carrier - a tablecloth mei tai with padded-to-wrap style straps and a ring waist that is fully reversible :) I love this style because it has the look and feel of a woven wrap but I find it MUCH easier to do back carries with the structure of the waistband and body panel. The long and wide straps make it so that you can still tie it off like a woven wrap (Tibetan finish, chest belt, ruck, etc), spreading the stress points across your chest and shoulders to more evenly distribute the weight. So here we go! More details after the jump. Scroll way down if you want to skip the background information :)

I have made a number of mei tais with and without wrap style straps, one of which was reversible (the purple one) but super duper heavy, using this amazing tutorial - I have used osnaburg (khaki-colored one), tablecloths (green & blue with hood), curtains (the white one with blue flowers), twill (the black one with music notes), brushed canvas with quilter's cotton for decoration (purple one), and home decor fabric from Joann's (not pictured).

Very first attempt at the DIY thing - decorated with fabric markers, using osnaburg from Joann's

Green fabric is from a heavy, woven cotton tablecloth that was $1 at Goodwill. Blue, zigzag and cars fabric are twill from fabric.com, if you search "Premium Prints Felix" you will find the fabric. It should be 100% cotton and medium to heavy weight

Target Tablecloth found new at Goodwill for about $10. Inner supportive layer is duck/canvas from Joann's

Black medium weight twill from Joann's (inner layer is duck), with quilter's cotton for decorative panel and hood lining. Hoodie hood was a pattern I made myself, but a pretty similar tutorial can be found here

Purple brushed canvas from fabric.com with Michael Miller fabric for hat and decorative panels. This is fully reversible. Padded straps with layers of fleece and waistband made from retired yoga mat. The beginnings of the waist straps are also padded with fleece. I used Fine and Fair's tutorial for padded straps for this carrier. 

Then I moved on to soft structured carriers, just in the last few weeks. I have made two so far though one will not be pictured as it's a surprise gift for someone. I used Sew Toot's Little Pick Me Up pattern from Etsy...it is well worth the purchase price. She is much better at explaining things than I am and must have busted her butt for hours to put the pattern and tutorial together. The Mahogany carrier was constructed using the waistband pattern and method of construction from the LPMU pattern, and that is also how I learned to sew the darts for a deeper seat.

I guess it makes sense here to put another jump that just skips directly to the details of the Mahogany carrier. Here we go.

I designed my own size/shape body panel based on the dimensions that I want for my 24# 33" tall 15 month old. He is tall and skinny. The toddler tula was too wide for us, and even the tween-tot sized LPMU is a little bit wide at the top. I made this contoured so that it's a little wider at the bottom so he gets knee-to-knee support without the whole thing feeling huge and boxy. The dimensions are a little less than a toddler tula, just slightly more than a standard tula, just for reference. Here is a picture with the measurements for each line that is cut.

I wanted padded-to-wrap shoulder straps because I love wide wrap style straps but I have old lady weak shoulders and my kid is heavy. The padding is about 14" long, and just a straight rectangle about 3" wide. I used high density upholstery foam from Joann's. . My wrap straps were about 14" wide after being hemmed on both sides. I folded them into thirds so that one side showed the black side of the fabric, and one side the grey. I wish I'd gotten a picture of the sewing process. I sewed down one side, inserted the piece of foam padding, and sewed down the other side (14"), and then down the middle (14") to set the foam in place. As I sewed my stitch length was 4 - you always want a longer stitch length when you are sewing through this much junk. 

This is after the straps are attached to the canvas inner layer and your topstitching is done. 

The prettier side of the straps

Folding the fabric in thirds allows both sides of the strap to match the side of the carrier that's facing out

For the waistband, I cut the pieces from the LPMU pattern, though I did the padding my own way. Since this is a ring-waisted carrier I wanted the rings (or buckles, if you are using buckles) to rest on padding rather than dig into my muffin top. I like this a little bit better than just using waist straps to tie. It is easier to adjust and get a higher back carry. For the waist strap, I sewed some parallel lines along the length so that  it would lay flatter instead of rolling up into said muffin top. 

Lastly for now (though I might update this later), when you are setting your body piece into the waistband, START IN THE MIDDLE!! It seems like a pain but it will help things smooth out as you go. This is something I learned from quilting. It takes a few more minutes but it's worth it - you won't end up with bunching on one end or another. 

Start in the middle and sew out to the ends

Keep tugging and straightening as you go, stopping frequently to make sure all your layers are together!!