Silk baby carriers

[californiagirl]

I made DD an Asian Baby Carrier from Rev. Jan's instructions, and I have a piece of silk brocade I'd like to use to make a fancy one, but DD is a spitty baby, and I'm worried about washing it. What do people with silk baby carriers do about washing them? I have a Maya and a New Native partly so there's something to carry the baby in on the second errand, after she soaks one of them on the first...

[supercalifragilous]

It seems a lot of silk brocades are dry clean only. However, there are some out there that are woven with rayon or polyester, making them machine washable. In fact, I think Zolowear's brocade slings are washable. Out of curiosity, which fabric did you get?

[zen_bliss]

which fabric do you have? a lot of the popular brocades you see (dragon & phoenix pattern; cherry blossom pattern) are a silk/polyester blend. very sturdy, machine washable, and can even go through the dryer. my brocade ringslings are on jan's site and look as good as new despite quite a few washings. i hang them to get mostly dry then do a short run in the dryer while damp to soften up, get a nice sheen, and take out the wrinkles. the only thing i'd say is test the piece for color runs... i pre-washed the black & put it through a vinegar rinse because it did bleed a fair amount. HTH!

[californiagirl]

I don't know which fabric I have. It's been in my stash for about 5 years. It's dark green with purple and gold butterflies. I think I originally bought it for a jacket so I wouldn't have worried about it being dry clean only. I suppose I'll just have to try a test piece.

[ALLEYCAT]

what do you mean "my brocade ring slings are on Rev Jans site"? Do you sell them? How does silk stand up in the rings, it seems it would wear unevenly.

[Jan Andrea]

There are pictures of her slings in the Gallery on my site. They were the first silk brocade slings I sewed (by her request -- I never would have thought to do it by myself!).

She returned them to me about two months ago to be re-ringed -- I had used 2.5" craft rings originally, because the aluminum SlingRings didn't exist when I first sewed her slings -- and if I hadn't seen pictures of her wearing them, I wouldn't have known that she had used them at all. The silk was in fine condition -- softer for having been washed, but no wear to speak of. She's had them for a year now, which is hard for me to believe :) It seems like I just sewed them the other day.

[californiagirl]

I washed a swatch of the silk brocade, and it seemed OK, so I went ahead and made up the carrier. It went to a wedding with us and did a great job of keeping people's attention on the baby instead of on me. Before I wash it I need to overstitch a place where I did a particularly bad sewing job and there's a tiny bit of exposed ravelly edge.

Both carriers I've made work great. Neither one was 44" material; the first was 60 and the second 30. So in both cases I had leftover bits from cutting the bodies, and in both case I cut the bodies with no bottom seam. I used the leftover bit to line the bottom and use it as a casing. On the first one I sewed the straps in 3-4" in with X-in-a-box stitching. That was a major pain and looked nasty, mostly because of my ineptitude, so on the second one I overlapped the two strap ends, did an X-in-a-box while I topstitched them, and sewed the result into the casing with a single vertical stitching line down the middle.

The casing trick is a little difficult intellectually, but easy enough to sew. Sew the bodies together across the bottom if you've cut two. Put the extra strip across, right side to right side, and sew a tapered seam that's normal width down the middle, where it will be open, and narrower at the ends, where you'll be stitching the side seams. Or it will work just fine to use the narrower one all along. Turn and press the result, and then sew the rest of the body seams as normal, stopping to leave the casing openings. You can use those as turning openings.