Mama By Design

Always have a spotter ready to help you!

Step One: Put a leg up on something, in this case a handy park bench. Lay the Calyx flat on your thigh, and then have the baby straddle your leg on top. Notice how the waistband is well out of the way, the baby is sitting on the middle of the panel. This is important, because the panel piece needs to form the seat. Too close to the waistband, and you get a big gap between it and your back, and the Calyx will not be comfortable. Clip the harness and tighten it to the smallest possible opening.

Step Two: Make sure the shoulder straps are on the correct side of the legs. Cross your arms, and grasp them in your hands as close to the baby as possible. This is very important, because without your hands there at the baby’s chest, it is possible for her to somersault forward and possibly fall.

Step Three: With your spotter at the ready, begin to lift your baby over your shoulder. Make sure to start high, so the weight can settle in to the right place. Steps three and four go quickly!

Step Four: At the right moment, have your spotter help you stick your arms through the straps, one at a time, then settle the load. A good way to do that is to reach back and grab the place where the straps meet the carrier body at the top corners. Giving a very gently bounce (never shake a baby!) pull up the slack all the way along the strap to the buckle, and adjust the webbing. Your spotter can help.

Step Five: Clip the sternum strap and then the waistband. Your spotter can help you adjust the shoulder straps and make sure the padded tongue is protecting the baby’s legs. Once you have the Calyx adjusted comfortably, you can roll up the excess webbing and secure it with the elastic loop on the end of the strap.

MBD and Help Us Give Slings have teamed up for the Babywearing Conference! These beautiful carriers will be available at the HUGS booth and through MamaGear.com. MBD buys the Selendang slings at full price, and uses the fabric to decorate the Calyx. In addition, a portion of the sale price is donated back to HUGS. As well as the Emerald Green carrier shown, we also have Garnet Red and Ruby Pink.

HUGS is a non-profit family effort that provides baby slings to mothers on both sides of the Pacific. Purchase a beautiful Indonesian selendang baby sling to enjoy the benefits of the traditional practice of baby wearing. The funds raised are used to donate slings to mothers still living in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in tsunami affected regions in Indonesia.

MamaGear.com will continue to offer these as a special order Calyx, so don’t worry if you can’t make the conference or need a special size.

I will be unavailable until Friday, as I am on an Amtrak train en route from Portland, OR to Chicago, IL. From now until July 4th I will be traveling, and while I can answer emails (probably in the evening) my availability will be limited.

MBD products will still ship, I have some helpers back home assisting with that. I will try to get the new products listed tonight, though I have a million other things to do so please forgive me if they don’t go up until the end of the week.

The first thing you need to know, is that the rings attached to the Calyx have nothing to do with the headrest. Those rings can be used to attach toys, teethers, sucking cloths, or anything else you might find useful. They’re also for the Kit Bag, a diaper bag attachment we’ve got in the works.

The headrest is rectangular. Along the top edge is a strip of webbing, which extends out to each side. The straps on the sides have clips, which allow the webbing to loop around the shoulder straps and clip to itself. That holds the headrest in place, and allows the headrest to adjust to support the baby in a comfortable position. The bottom edge is hemmed, with elastic cord loops at each corner. The shoulder straps are threaded through these loops before you put the carrier on.

While your baby is awake, it will look like this. If you don’t want it to hang down in front of the panel, you can attach the webbing straps in advance, but it makes it much harder to deal with when you want to use it. If you have a helper with you, it’s not as difficult.

When your baby has fallen asleep, you reach back to grab the hanging webbing strap. Gently ease the headrest over the baby and loop the webbing around the shoulder strap, clipping it to itself. It is a good idea to use a mirror, window, or helper to make sure that the head is positioned well, and airways are clear.

For some reason, none of the packages I have shipped recently seem to be showing up on USPS tracking. I don’t understand it, because I helped the mail carrier put the boxes on her truck myself… please let me know when they start showing up, I’m just as confused as you are.

ETA: I have learned that apparently they are only required to scan them upon delivery, and it is not unusual for them not to show up until the last minute. So hang on, don’t worry, your Calyx will be home soon

I’m really excited about the 2nd International Babywearing Conference, being held at DePaul University in Chicago June 25-28. I grew up in Chicago, my Dad has been a professor at DePaul since I was two years old, and I went to school there myself back in the 90’s. I’m taking my girls to Chicago to see their grandpa and to attend the conference via Amtrak, because I’m crazy. 48 hours from Eugene to Chicago, and no sleeping car.

Here’s the important part, we will be leaving June 10th and coming home July 3rd. All of my current custom orders are scheduled to be finished in time for me to ship them out before I leave, but the shop is slammed right now and I can’t guarantee that I can sneak any more in. I’ll be picking up samples of some new lines, including the Solids and the Amy Butlers*, and some extra-special ones just for the conference…more on that later…

If you are sending in fabric, get it to me ASAP. I will prep it and give it to the shop, and they will work on it while I am gone. (Any fabric received after June 7 is going to have to wait until I come back.) I do have someone to help with shipping. It might be just once/week shipping while I am gone, but orders will go out. I will also arrange to have anything that gets finished after the 9th picked up, so I’m hoping that things can be fairly smooth while I’m gone.

*The really bad news is that some of the Amy Butler fabrics are still backordered, so it doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to squeak those through until later. IF they do happen to come in time for me to get them to the shop before I go, then I’ll put in the order and hopefully they’ll be waiting for me when I get home. I’ll have samples of those and some other things with me in Chicago, look for them in the fashion show.

Once again, I enlist the help of my fugly friend to bring you the simple solid Calyx. Almost… This is just the sample piece of the back shell, but you get the idea…

Now, this color combination is Black/ Topaz which is not going to be one of the stock options. You can see we’ve chalked “A” and “B” on the pieces if you look carefully…we’ll be offering A/B: Black/Metal, Metal/Topaz, and Cocoa/Terracotta. There will be a coordinating print lining, but the straps will be fabric A with fabric B as an accent.

In addition, some Calyx Collections will offer this style with a print fabric for fabric B. In those cases the lining and strap accents will be that same fabric. (Yes, it will be backed with a canvas piece for strength)

We will offer custom sizing, and custom fabric combos up to a point…probably something like “choose a canvas for A, a canvas for B, and your lining fabric.” I’m undecided about custom prints for fabric B, the folks at my shop are really nice, but I’m not sure how much of this they can take!

When people choose fabrics to send in for custom carriers, of course they want to know how much fabric they need to buy. What I tell them might be kind of confusing. I say:

“Send 3/4 yard for your lining. If you would like your panel to be the same fabric as your lining, that amount will suffice. For the border, you may send a fat quarter, a quarter yard (if you are shopping online, or your independent quilt store won’t cut fat quarters for you), or I will choose from my ginormous Hoffman 1895 fat quarter stash.”

That’s pretty simple, easy to follow, BUT what if somebody wants a panel that is different than the lining? That’s where it gets confusing.

“Well,” sez me. “If your fabric has a small print, send 1/2 yard or a fat quarter. If your fabric has a large print, send 3/4 yard. I need to cut a 9X9 piece, or an 11×11 piece if you don’t want a border. If you go to a quilt store, you might be able to get away with a smaller piece even if your fabric has a large print, because you’ll be able to see whether the part of the image that you want for your panel can be cut properly.”

Huh? Finally, the perfect fabric came in. This is what it looked like on the website. The mama who ordered this carrier was particularly enamored of the red fish.

Here is a 3/4 yard cut of this very large scale print.

See how the only complete red fish is smack in the center of the cut? We were using this fabric for both panel and lining, the print was large enough that we didn’t use a border. For a smaller print, we could have probably gotten two carriers out of the 3/4 yards, but in this case I barely had enough space to squeeze the lining template into the upper left-hand corner. It wouldn’t fit anywhere else without being sideways. Imagine what it would have looked like as a 1/2 yard cut, the tail would have been cut off!

So, if your fabric has a great big print like this, and especially if you are ordering online where you can’t see the cut, you’ll need to send lots of it. For a panel to come out the way you want, 3/4 yard is the minimum, even if you are also sending a different 3/4 yard piece for the lining. I will send the extra fabric back to you.

I’ll be gone Friday-Monday. I will have my computer and may be able to answer emails at least once or twice,  but don’t be surprised if you don’t hear back from me right away.  I should be able to ship any orders that come in on Tuesday.

I will be in Olympia, WA if anybody is interested.

MummyBeeLee from TBW made some Calyx videos!  Links are here:

Back Carry

Getting out of a Back Carry

Because I’m unbearably picky the only thing I’d change here is that when you are putting the baby on your leg to go up to the back carry,  begin by laying the Calyx along the top of your thigh.  Keep the waistbelt and harness portion out of the way,  and straddle the baby on what looks like the middle of the panel portion.  Then,  when you buckle baby in,  the waistbelt is to the front of his thighs.

When you go to take the shoulder straps in your hands,  if you bring them under baby’s armpits,  it can feel more secure.  Also then baby’s weight doesn’t cause the wasistband to end up in the wrong place.

Thank you very much,  Bee!