loan it baby…

a few days ago i shared the details of the woowoo woven wrap loan idea and invited people to comment if they wanted to be entered for the chance to loan.  four people entered wanted to try out one of my wraps and i had said that i would send two wraps out on loan.  i like it when everybody “wins” and two times two is clearly four so i have decided that all of the people who entered will get a chance to try a wrap.  so there.  i am going to send them out in two cycles and i drew the names of out a bucket but they happened to come up in essentially the same order as people commented in (strange, huh?) so that is the order wraps will be shipped out in.

the two wraps i intend to send out on loan are jorinde and natty brown:

jorinde center, natty brown left

natty brown close up

they are both made by didymos, they are both a size 6 (4.6 m), they are both great wraps in my opinion.  the jorinde is a little thinner, it is a flat weave with less of a cushy feel.  the natty brown is famous for being one of the softest wraps ever.  jorinde is thinner, lighter, still very supportive.  that is just a very brief introduction to their subtle differences.  i will let the “winners” chose which wrap they would prefer to try in the order they were pulled out of the bucket and we’ll take it from there.  so here is the order of go:

kim

krista

gladys

heather

you can leave your wrap choice preference in comments.  you can ask as many questions as you want first.  i will do my best to answer them.  i will try to contact you via email as well.  let the games begin.

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ironing

 

bean snoozin' in iris at about 4 weeks old

 

 

if you spend any time talking to wrap geeks you will eventually hear about ironing your wraps.  why, oh why, would you iron something that your baby is going to be tied up in, that will be drooled on and spit up on and dragged around the lawn like a cape by your toddler?  when a woven wrap is brand new it is not that soft or flexible.  this condition is often called “crunchy.”  no one loves a crunchy wrap.  if you are brand new to wrapping and you get a brand new wrap and pull it out of the box and try it once or twice and then go over to thebabywearer.com forums and listen to ladies going on and on about how soft their “iris” is or their “lars” you might think they have cracked.   and the truth is, there are a lot of cracked people when it comes to woven wraps because there is just something magical about them once you are hooked.  but the other truth is that wraps soften a lot as they get broken in and one way to do this is by ironing.  washing, wearing, sleeping with, braiding, ironing, and otherwise abusing a wrap is a great way to break it in.  then, you have an entirely different beast.  something strong but soft and supple.  this is a state we like to call “buttery soft.”

 

bean hip carried in iris at 10 months

 

my dear friend mellowmama does not live near me but we stay in touch very well.  she is well versed in my wrap love.  at one point, maybe two years ago, she decided she had listened to me rattle on about how much i loved my woven’s long enough and she wanted to try a wrap.  until then she had been mainly using mai tai’s (or asian inspired baby carriers).  she bought a didymos simon and tried it for a little bit but she kept telling me, “i just don’t get it.  i don’t love it.”  so she sold it on to a new home.  about a year later she came up for a visit and while she was here she was, of course, hanging out with my wrap stash.  it was a lightbulb moment for her.  she tried my wraps.  she loved my wraps.  she told me “my simon didn’t feel anything like this.  these are so soft!”  then she decided that she wanted a simon again but only if i would break him in for her.  poor me, having to use a simon!  i happily agreed.  in fact, i ended up breaking in two didymos wraps for mellowmama and i loved every second of it.

 

stash shot january 2008

 

so that is a little geekery about woven wraps.  they are lovely lovely things.  they can be used in a million ways and can carry anything from a newborn through your three year old and up (i still occasionally wrap the bean on my back while i cook if he needs some extra snuggles).  they can be used for a front carry, a hip carry, or a back carry and there are a million versions of all of three to try.  they can also be a picnic blanket, a swing, a hammock, a nursing cover up, a shawl, and on and on.  let your imagination run wild.  the more you use your wrap the more you will love it and the softer and more like butter, or flannely, or whatever descriptive you come up with, it will get.

chickpea back wrapped at 2 weeks old in asw

 

one other note, most woven wraps have a name.  all my woven wraps are made by a company called didymos.  didymos gives each wrap (distinguishable by colorway and weave type) a name.  the wraps are then commonly called simply by there name.  so, among wrap users or on thebabywearer forums or for sale or trade boards you will see the wraps called by their name and size usually (the size is the length – different lengths are better for different types of carries or different sized people).  right now i am wearing the pea in eva.  when i talk about this wrap i will just call her eva as in “flash, can you throw eva in the bag?”  or “do you want to try eva or jorinde?”  sometimes the name is long and so it gets shortened to initials, such as my lavendel silk ellipsen which you will seen called “lse” or my old aqua silk waves “asw.”

 

 

chickpea rucked in lse

 

 

ok, i think i have now inundated you with way more than enough useless information.  time to iron out the details of this woowoo woven wrap loan plan.

 

1. i will be choosing two of my woven wraps to send out to two separate people on loan.
2. i will ask for the people who “win” the opportunity to loan them to cover the shipping cost both ways including delivery confirmation. *
3. the wraps loan time will be two weeks starting when it arrives until the time i ask you to ship it back to me.
4. if for some reason you fall in love with the wrap and feel you do not want to ship it back i will sell it to you for a fair price based on current selling prices of used woven wraps.
5. while you are loaning the wrap you will do your best to take care of it while also enjoying learning to use it.
6. i will send a copy of the didymos instruction booklet with the wrap and i will also be available by email, and possible phone or chat to help you learn how to use the wrap, suggest carries, trouble shoot, etc.
7. you will take a picture of yourself (or spouse) wearing your child in the wrap that i can put up on this blog (unless you really don’t want me to).
8. wraps will be washed by me before i ship them out, but you do understand they are used and i do have a cat (although i don’t wrap her).  

 

*if paying the cost of shipping would prohibit you from being able to enter please just enter and contact me to let me know you cannot cover the shipping and we will see if we can work some thing out.

 

 

ok to enter this “loan away” (since it is not really a give away) please leave a comment in which you tell me three things:

1. are you a “regular” reader or did you come by for the loan?
2. do you have a favorite post?
3. what is your favorite baby carrier?  (doesn’t have to be cloth.  you can say your arms, or your spouse, or the dog…)

 

“winners” will be chosen at random so this isn’t like a test or anything i am just asking for fun!  i will leave this open until monday at 7pm EST.  “winners” will be announced (and contacted) on tuesday june 16.

 

ok, boogie on reggae women (and men) 

until tomorrow when a regular/non woowoo woven wrap loan post will return.

peace peace and more peace (thank you) ~woowoo mama

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stash pics & woowoo woven wrap loan talk

ok, steph over at adentures in babywearing annouced earlier this week that she was going to put stash shots up today and invite people to link with theirs.  since she has been borrowing one of my woven wraps it only made sense for me to join in.  without further ado, here are some stash pics:

 

wraps laid out

wraps folded & stacked

the wraps above are (top to bottom):

je porte mon bebe in black/grey

didymos natural grown brown indio 6

didymos jorinde 6

didymos eva 6

didymos violet and white pfau dyed black cherry 6

didymos cassis waves 5

dydmos lavendel ellipsen 4

 

i found action shots of all of these but i didn’t want to drown you all in photo’s.  infact, i had fun going through my iphoto and finding all the pictures i could of me wearing the bean and the pea.  i put them all in a folder and maybe i’ll make a little book up for myself one day.  it was also fun to visit with all the carriers i have tried, so many different didy’s and some mt’s and some ssc’s.  

 

i do use one ssc still, the only pic i could find was an old action shot with the bean from when i first got it.

 

i still don't know how to fix the sideways issue!

 

this is an angel pack lx.

ok, with those shown it only makes sense for me to get onto my fun new idea. i really enjoyed sending pfau out to steph to try out and i hope she had fun trying it. i feel so blessed that i have been able to wear my children in woven wraps and i think it would be really great to spread the love. i know there are people out there who want to try wrapping but are afraid of spending the money when they are not sure they will like it and/or are afraid that it will be too difficult to learn how to wrap.

so here is my idea, i am going to pull a few wraps out of my stash and i am going to loan them to my readers! i will provide the wrap, instructions for using it, and whatever support i can from afar (email etc) to make it all less overwhelming to try. you try out my wrap for a few weeks and then send it back to me so that i can let someone else try it out. sound fun?

if you are interested come on back tomorrow when i will have a way for you to enter to be the first to experience the woowoo woven wrap loan!

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