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).
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| Very first attempt at the DIY thing - decorated with fabric markers, using osnaburg from Joann's |
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| 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 |
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| Target Tablecloth found new at Goodwill for about $10. Inner supportive layer is duck/canvas from Joann's |
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| 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 |
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| 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.
