The Que

I'm trying to cross a Kinderpack with a Girasol Mysol Mia Tai...that's what this boils down to. I want the deep seated triple panel of the Kinderpack, with the height and leg adjustability of the Mysol. Combine the ease of buckles with the squishy softness of a hand-woven wrap, and an element of adjustability and perhaps I will have it all.... or will go crazy thinking of new combinations to try.

So I've redrawn a body panel of my own by connecting lines between sizes. Instead of experimenting with my Girasol Donau size 4 wrap (that I procured explicitly
 for conversion, I'm going to start with my water carrier first. Yes, even though I have a water sling, I think I "need" a water soft structured carrier too. Last summer I watched a mom wear her baby in a beater Ergo in the pool almost everyday. It was a marvelous idea as Ergos can be found for cheap and aren't so valuable that you'll be loosing money wrecking it in the pool. However, the only thing that bothered me a bit was I noticed her Ergo fabric (cotton) was wearing out pretty good. It certainly seemed stable enough, but I conjectured that there had to be better materials out there for water use. So I found a polyester canvas to pair up with my polyester comfort sport mesh fabric, and hope that this would prove a more water durable option. Nylon is lovely too, but tends to be a bit slippery, and flimsy, so Polyester it is. One downside though is this polyester canvas is not very soft... at all. It's not going to win any squishy baby carrier awards that's for sure! However, since I need an experimental for this new pattern I'm playing with, if it doesn't turn out awesome, I won't be heartbroken.

On the other hand, if it's as I'm hoping, I'll have a more clear direction to take with my precious Girasol Donua Wrap.

Room for two heads

Baby opening tucked in
closed position

Right because two are better than one.

Baby opening
open

It's my hope that when I don't need an opening for baby the button panel will tuck under discretely and not be too noticeable.

I'll have to sew on buttons, but the button holes are ready on the flip side of the baby collar/ opening ribbing.

Weird, uh?

Baby and Me Sweater

Here's the beginning
of the baby opening.

While it's spring, I'm still keenly aware of how awkward staying warm while baby wearing was this past winter. Waiting till next winter to come up with a solution seems silly, and now's the time to solve this problem. There are a few baby wearing coats being made which retail for anywhere from $100 to $200, but most need to be imported from overseas. I might still opt for a shelled baby wearing jacket eventually. However, for the moment I'm working on something which I hope will work for most winter days, save the most extremely cold ones, as our Virginia winters aren't too terrible. Often a heavy sweater or fleece coat is sufficient given you're properly layered underneath.

Donau Wrap Conversion

I have all the materials, except my made up mind at hand. I know I'm turning this wrap into a carrier with buckles. I like how the olive drab webbing looks with this, but I haven't determined if I want a firm structured waist belt or a softer quilted belt. Do I want a ventilation panel or the baby pouch to be totally made out of the wrap? What size I've yet to determine. So I'm not sure when I'll begin this particular wrap conversion.

ACU carrier

seat straps cinched all the way
for baby mode

While the stitching is rather sloppy in several places, they seem to be functional. Perhaps an industrial machine would help in a few steps, but I'm making due with what I've got. I changed a couple more things with this carrier, and still have one more addition to make once my digital camo elastic arrives (with the webbing for my next wrap conversion). 

This new ACU carrier
will work for both
present toddler
and incoming baby

The waist belt padding is one solid piece instead of three separate pieces. Not only is this easier to work with, and more esthetically pleasing, it seems to be equally comfortable.

The shoulder straps are still big and fluffy, which I love. My strap padding is a little longer and wider than Kinderpack standard straps, almost as long as their plus straps. However, my buckles are single adjust, and sewn so the buckle stays on the strap (or at least once I get the elastic on it should stay put). With our Kinderpack, my husband needs the plus straps in order to not get choked by the sternum strap, while I'm perfectly comfortable with the standard straps. This resulted in needing a special Dad carrier or he never wanted to wear it. I've noticed that with my first SSC (Dandies) wrap conversion, we can go back and forth wearing the same carrier and it works for us both.... or my dear husband is making more of an effort in making me believe I've improved our carrier situation. Our Dandies currently serves as the resident van carrier since it works for us both with our current crew of toddlers.

Proof that this is becoming a bit of an obsession, I want to make "just one more." My husband really likes the pockets on the waist belt, and the uniform label I transferred to the inside of the belt that keeps him from putting the carrier on backwards.

Almost finished...but not quite done

Another naptime, and I was able to get the belt and hood sewn onto the body of the carrier. I tried something a little different on the belt, and while it's tighter than previous seams in this area, the stitching, when examined up close, is not impressive. Having the stitching up close to the firm padding is very hard to accomplish, and so the feeder foot doesn't move the fabric as evenly as I'd like when I'm doing this seam. It hardly moves it at all, so I have to sort of tug at it to keep it feeding through, resulting in a very teeny stream of stitches. While they're quite functional, it's not appealing to the discerning eye.

The straps clash with the ACU fabric in the exact same fashion that the current uniform regulation desert camel boot clashed. I gave my husband a choice between the kaki or black straps. He choose Kaki, staying true to the look of the uniform indeed. The buckles will be black though, as I've yet to run across any other color in all the sizes I require.

Today's sewing...

I wouldn't usually sew in the middle of the week, but as the school children were out for a field trip all day I was home with the little folks, which allowed me to revert back to the good old days when I could sew during nap time.

This is my third soft structure carrier effort, at this point, turned inside out, and not totally assembled just yet. On this one I'm trying to do as much fabric sewing as possible before I start adding the buckles and stitching the webbing ends. It feels like it's going together a lot faster than the first two carriers.