Roots and Wings

Mei Tai tutorial – Reversible with padded straps and ‘scrunchable waist’ for small babies/forward facing carries.

2009-03-18T22:27:00.000-07:00

You will need:
2 yds of bottomweight fabric, 60” wide (canvas, denim, duck, home décor etc. – I used white canvas)
2 fat quarter size pieces of decorative fabric (one for each side – I used actual fat quarters for this one!)
Fleece or good quality batting (I used ugly remnants)
Good quality thread

Pattern and Cutting
1. Make your pattern for the body piece.

This is sideways...
along the top is where you will place the pattern along the fold. Measurment is 18" for this one, you can increase this for bigger babies/taller carrier, right side (bottom of body) is 8", side is 14" (if you increase the height of the carrier, increase this by the same amount), the little bit for the straps is at a 45 degree angle, and is 5".

2. Lay out your bottomweight fabric, fold in half (fold along the long side), mark out your fabric as in the picture. Cut everything out.

3. cut 3 pieces of fleece, 2 pieces 10”x18”, the other 30”x 10”
4. Lay body pattern on the decorative fabric and cut out. You now have 2 long shoulder straps, 1 slightly shorter waist strap, 4 body pieces (2 bottomweight and 2 decorative), and 3 pieces of fleece. If you want, cut out pieces for pockets too.

body peices cut out

Adding padding
5. Center the bigger piece of fleece on the waist strap. Pin in place. Sew along the short edges.

The pink is the fleece, just sew a line down the short ends of it.

6. Take one of the smaller pieces of fleece and line it up 6” from the end of one of the shoulder straps. Pin in place and sew along the short ends. Repeat with the other strap and fleece.

Straps
7. Fold all straps in half to make them 5” wide. Make sure the fleece is on the OUTSIDE (so right sides together). On the shoulder straps, start farthest from the fleece, and sew the short end and then all the way down the length of the strap – leave the short end closest to the fleece open. Repeat with other shoulder strap. For the waist strap, sew both short ends closed; leave a gap for turning at the center of the strap.
8. Clip corners and turn.
9. Sew along the thread lines where the fleece was attached (it will be at either end of each piece of fleece) you can topstitch everything if you want, but I prefer not to because it tends to bunch up. Might help to have a walking foot to prevent this.

Body
10. Place one canvas body piece on one decorative piece, right sides together, sew all the way around with a gap for turning. Repeat with other decorative piece and canvas.
11. Clip corners, turn and topstitch. Add pockets/toy loop etc. on either piece if you want to.

Here are all of the peices laid out before turning and topstiching. (on the shoulder straps the fleece is off white)

I added pockets

Assembly
12. Pin shoulder straps to one body piece. Fleece should be close to the body of the carrier.

13. Sew and x box on each strap.

14. Lay waist strap along the bottom, line up second body piece on top of the first one. Pin in place, put one pin on either side of the waist strap so you won't sew where that strap is going to go. You can leave the waist strap there while you sew or take it out so it won't be in the way.

15. Sew all the way around, on either side leaving a gap where the waist strap goes through. Sew a line across the width of the carrier just above where the waist strap is, so it creates a casing for the waist strap. Put it back in if you took it out before.

sew just above where this strap is going through, my line went along the bottom edge of the pocket.

That’s it!

This shows one side of the carrier, with the base full width

And scrunched up

Tips
To keep straps out of the way while sewing them on and finishing, fold or roll them up and secure with a hair tie, hair clip, safety pin or clothespin.
You can add a fold down hood; just add a curved shape to the top of the body pattern.
You can also stitch an x box in the center of the waist strap if you want it attached to the carrier.

Magic Cube Tutorial

2009-03-13T18:15:00.000-07:00

Magic Cube Tutorial

Inspired by Melladh’s post on Craftster.. I decided to make this fabric magic cube. It takes a loooong time to do, but is a satisfying project when its all done.

Tip: Remove small children from the area when putting things together, having a 20month old climbing on me while trying to arrange all the little pieces made things very difficult!

Materials:
- Small amounts of fabric in 9-10 different colors (great way to use up scraps!)
- Needle and thread and scissors
- Upholstery foam (or some foam cubes, I didn't bother to figure out where to get them, sense I already had a chunk on hand)
- Exact-o knife (to cut foam)
- Piece of paper or cardboard to make template
- Rotary cutter and mat (or just use scissors)
- Fusable interfacing (optional, I didn't use it for this one)

1. Cut foam into 8 equal squares – I used foam that’s 2.5” thick and cut it into strips, then cubes using the exact-o knife. Not easy to get things straight, but it worked. If you can find pre-cut foam squares, that would be even easier!

2. Make a template. Cut a square of cardboard the same size as one face of 1 foam cube + a little bit for seam allowance (I used ¼” all the way around). Now cut a rectangle, that is the size of 2 the squares you just cut put together.

3. (if desired, attach fusible interfacing before cutting) Cut out fabric. Fabrics 5-10 will be seen on the outside, the others are hidden inside until you unfold it. If you want to use only 9 fabrics, use the same colour for 1 and 2. In this chart I labeled it with the colors I used, when you make yours, replace my colour with whatever you are using. In this picture, fabrics 1 and 2 aren’t seen, they are just above my pink one! I guess I cut it out when I took the pictures.
Fabric # -- cut
1. Brown ‘splat’ -4 squares
2. Green swirl -2 rectangles
3. Pink ovals -2 rectangles, 4 squares
4. zebra -4 rectangles
5. red flower -2 rectangles
6. Orange paisley -2 rectangles
7. yellow dot -4 squares
8. green bubble -2 rectangles
9. blue leaves -1 rectangle, 2 squares
10. purple circles -1 rectangle, 2 squares

4. Now you are going to arrange your squares and pin on the fabric. I just places the squares/rectangles on each side and stabbed a pin in the center to hold them in place. For the rectangles, make sure the 2 cubes are right next to each other and stab one pin into each of the 2 cubes you are attaching together. Hope that makes sense, the pictures should help. – this is going to look really messy, but when you start sewing it will come together. Make sure you follow the steps carefully to avoid a mess (I had to try a couple times before getting it right). I’ll explain this the best I can…It’s a little hard to explain exactly, but if you look at the pictures that should help.

5. First arrange 4 foam cubes into a square (2x2) on the table in front of you. Attach Fabric 1, using 1 square of fabric for each of the 4 faces of the foam on top. Now very carefully flip the whole thing over. You will now have 4 cubes arranged in a square with fabric #1 on the bottom.

6. Arrange the remaining 4 foam cubes next to the first set. Attach fabric 2, placing each rectangle horizontally. This pic shows step 5 on the left, and step 6 on the right. This is how yours should look now.

7. Place the second set of cubes on top of the first set. You now have the entire square using all 8 cubes, with fabric #1 on the bottom face, and #2 on the top face. In this pic you can see that the green fabic (2) is on top, and the brown (1) is on bottom.

8. Now grab the whole cube by the left and the right sides, pull apart. You will now have a rectangle that is 4x2. The pic explains this best…. You will end up with fabric 1 on the sides of the short ends, and the 2 rectangles of fabric 2 folded in the middle. All of the squares on top will be blank.

9. Fabric 3 is next. Put one rectangle on each end of the rectangle of cubes – vertically. The four squares of fabric 3 go on the four squares in the middle.

10. Fold cubes again – ‘hot dog’ style so that fabric 4 ends up in the crack along the middle. You will still have a rectangle shape. Make sure it is still in front of you ‘landscape’ style. In the pic you can see that the pink fabic (my fabric 3) is all in the crack running lenghthwise now

11. Fabric 4 is four rectangles, all of these go horizontally. I didn't take a picture of this, hopefully it makes sense, if all 4 pieces of the fabric are horizontal, there is only one way they can go on!

12. Next, grab the two cubes on each end (fabric 1 will still be on the sides of the short ends), fold these up on top of the middle 4 cubes, so that the fabric 1 squares all end up touching on top. You now have a 2x2x2 cube again. This picture is a little blurry, but you can see fabric 1, the brownish one in the center crack on top now.

13. Fabric 5 goes on the top of the cube, both rectangles go vertically.

14. Flip the whole cube to the left, so now fabric 5 will be on the left side of the cube and you will have a blank top again.

15. Fabric 6 goes on top, this time both rectangles go horizontally.

16. As before, flip the whole cube to the left, now fabric 6 is on the left side of the cube and the top will be blank.

17. Fabric 7 goes on top, one square on each little foam cube.

18. One more time rotate the cube to the left. Now fabric 7 is on the left side, and the top is blank.

19. Fabric 8 goes on top, rectangles go horizontally.

20. Last time, rotate it to the left. Fabric 5 will be on top again! Now rotate the cube towards you to expose another blank side.

21. Fabric 9 goes here. On the top, place the rectangle horizontally, on the bottom 2 faces, put the 2 squares.

22. Rotate whole cube towards you again. Fabric 7 will be on top. Rotate towards you again. The last blank side will be showing.

23. Fabric 10 goes here. Put the 2 squares on the top. Rectangle goes horizontally on the bottom.

24. Now all sides of your cube will have fabric on them - and its SUPPOSED to look like a big mess.

25. Next comes the boring part that takes forever. Sew up all the edges! Every edge where 2 fabrics meet will be sewn together. I did this by folding one fabric flat over the edge of the cube, and the other fabric folded slightly under (so all raw edges are folded under) and then sew the folded edges together. You can use a whip stitch or blanket stitch. Along the long sides of the rectangles you can sew continuously, and around corners, but where there are 2 cubes next to each other you will have to stop and restart on the next edge to avoid sticking everything together. That’s hard to explain but it should make sense when you see it.

26. Once all the edges are sewn, look back over everything and make sure all the corners look neat. Now look at all of the rectangle shaped pieces- on mine there were gaps in the ‘cracks’ between the foam cubes, so I went back through and sewed the rectangles together in the middles. Again, this makes a lot more sense when you actually look at it. Its not as hard as you’d think.

27. Remove ALL pins and cut off any random threads. Double check that all the pins are gone before you give this to a child (there is a lot and they seem to keep appearing)

You are done! Enjoy!

Please feel free to ask me any questions if you get confused – and I’d love to see pictures if you use this tutorial.

My new blog!

2009-03-13T15:26:00.001-07:00

I kinda fogot about my old blog, so Im starting over again!