Monday, August 22, 2011

All Wrapped Up!

stack of 'finished' wraps


sewing the 'hand woven by Laura Fry' label into the seam

The thing about weaving is that what you are mostly making is squares or rectangles.  Towels, place mats, shawls, scarves, table cloths.  Rectangles.  Or squares.

Generally if you are making something out of your fabric, you can make any sort of shape you want, like garments.  Or bags.  Or - well, your imagination is the limit.

I'm not a seamstress.  Yes, I can sew - if I have to.  But to make a garment that fits well and doesn't look home made instead of hand made - well, I would rather be weaving.

So when I was approached last December about making baby wraps, I thought that would be a great new product for me.  I wove a prototype and then could not contact the person who asked me about it - their email elicited no reply, a message left on their voice mail garnered no return call.  So I boxed the prototype up and pretty much forgot about it.

Until I met my latest student.  :)  She's a big fan of baby wraps and essentially wanted to learn how to weave so that she could make herself baby wraps.  I remembered my prototype and found it in the store room (a bit of a miracle, really!) and gave it to her to test drive.

Her feedback was great and I revisited the idea with her input.  And now I have 3 completed wraps with 3 more yet to come, possibly 4, because I made a couple of them shorter than originally planned.

Whether or not the baby wearing community will be interested in my baby wraps is yet to be determined.  But I feel confident I've got a product that will perform well and, well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.  And besides, they are rectangles.  If they don't sell as baby wraps I can always cut them down into table cloths or something, right?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wait. You are selling these? demo please. I know a baby due to arrive in 6-7 mos and needs a lot of sweet hand made stuff...

Laura Fry said...

Yes, I'll be offering them for sale. If you Google 'baby wraps' you'll find lots of pics. I was pretty amazed! :) Not sure when I'll have pics of mine being worn. Hopefully soon....gotta finish the rest of the first run. Still working how how long to weave to get specific lengths/sizes.

cheers,
Laura

Anonymous said...

Laura, what a great idea! Hope they sell like hotcakes.

Sharon Schulze said...

Your baby wraps are very much like "rebozos", cloths that serve the same purpose in Mexico. A baby in a rebozo/baby wrap always looks so cuddly!

Teena Tuenge said...

My son and daughter-in-law used to live in Ann Arbor, Michigan. There were many women in that community carrying their infants in wraps. Also, lots of breast feeding going on and natural childbirth. I think it may depend on the community. Asheville, NC would probably also be a good place.
Will you sell these on-line? Good luck. They look very comfy.
Teena

Laura Fry said...

Many cultures have a tradition of wraps in various configurations. There are 6 or 7 'standard' lengths to accommodate the different ways of wrapping.

Yes, I'll probably post them to my Art Fire store. It's already set up ready to go. Actually I desperately need to update it with new product. Too many other things going on - or not - this year. :(

cheers,
Laura

Unknown said...

Wish I knew somebody "expecting" so I could either buy one of yours or give a shot at weaving one They look like they're fun. I like doing something that is simple in design so you can have all your fun with the patterning and they weave up fairly quickly.

Stephanie @ Budgets and Babies said...

Handwovens in babywearing are starting to boom again! Not sure if you're willing to touch on this again, but the demand is HIGH!