There have been a lot of milestones on our babywearing journey. The first time I did a successful back carry, the first time I did a successful back carry in public, the first time I nursed easily in a wrap, the first time E fell asleep while being worn, and the first time I was able to share the babywearing love with someone else. After 16-ish months of wearing E almost every day, I decided it would be a good time to explore commemorating our time as a wrapper and a wrap-ee.
"Handwoven" is a buzz word in the wrap world these days. It basically means a wrap that is woven on a loom by a person, putting in hours of work, rather than programmed into a machine which carries out the task. Handwovens are fairly easy to find, although there are several weavers who produce very limited and sought-after quantities of fabric that can cost you anywhere from $500-1200 and more. However, there are far more affordable handwoven wraps in the $100-200 range. Girasol is one example. Here is a video showing the Girasol weavers at work. Pretty impressive!
"Handwoven" is a buzz word in the wrap world these days. It basically means a wrap that is woven on a loom by a person, putting in hours of work, rather than programmed into a machine which carries out the task. Handwovens are fairly easy to find, although there are several weavers who produce very limited and sought-after quantities of fabric that can cost you anywhere from $500-1200 and more. However, there are far more affordable handwoven wraps in the $100-200 range. Girasol is one example. Here is a video showing the Girasol weavers at work. Pretty impressive!

I decided that I would love to jump in the babywearing deep end and commission a custom piece of "fabric art", and decided to look for a local weaver willing to take on the task. Through the Chicago Weaving School, I found a master weaver who was willing to meet with me and start conceiving of a project. I brought a few of my wraps with me to give her an idea of the dimensions and style I was looking for. I also brought pictures for color inspiration.
The idea was to create a wrap with colors that represented E's first year. The grays on the left were representative of mountains and the road, travel and hiking are two of our family's big passions. The pink was for E's sun hat that she had worn in nearly every picture from every trip we had taken, from Arizona to Mexico to Florida to Cape Cod. The green is the color of our VW Vanagon. For 3 months in 2011, my husband and I travelled around the country in that van and E was our little souvenir ;) The orange and the purple I added because they were pretty and complementary.
The idea was to create a wrap with colors that represented E's first year. The grays on the left were representative of mountains and the road, travel and hiking are two of our family's big passions. The pink was for E's sun hat that she had worn in nearly every picture from every trip we had taken, from Arizona to Mexico to Florida to Cape Cod. The green is the color of our VW Vanagon. For 3 months in 2011, my husband and I travelled around the country in that van and E was our little souvenir ;) The orange and the purple I added because they were pretty and complementary.
The weaver, Judith, was wonderful to work with. Really interested in babywearing and excited to create a piece of "functional art". We went back and forth on colors, materials, and patterns. Finally we settled on a warp (the strands that run end to end of the wrap) of medium gray with different sized and spaced stripes of pink, green, orange, and purple with a dark gray weft (the fibers that run across the fabric). The warp is on the loom and hopefully I'll have some pictures to share soon! Stay tuned to the BabyBeWorn FaceBook page for updates.