Babywearing Poncho

To state that I have sewn something today would almost be a white lie ;-)

Time for DIY projects has been very scarce since our Little Miss Madam has arrived. After almost eight weeks since her birth, I have finally gotten around to making something practical yet simple (as stated: time is scarce).

To be completely honest, the weather forecast made me nervous and persuaded me to finally get a move on and buy some fleece. Snow is scheduled for the end of this week, even though we have hardly had a proper November beforehand, and we live at the bottom of a hill. Bottoms of hills have their advantages (like not having to climb back up the hill to get home after a good round of sledging), however, if the school is over the top of the hill and in addition to the child that has to get there on time, you also need to push a pram - well, some disadvantages also come with this domestic location.

It's good to have a baby carrier in such cases. And I for one love wraps. They're so versatile, compact and my middle one and Little Miss Madam loved to /love being carried around in one. The only problem was, that I have absolutely no winter jacket/coat available where Little Miss Madam will also fit into when being carried in the wrap.

I have spent hours browsing the net to find some sewing instructions for a babycarrying solution, thinking a poncho would maybe be a good compromise for the time being. Until yesterday I had only found babycarrier pouches for just around the babies (the solution for when you can get part of your jacket zipped) or babycarrier zip-in pouches (basically extensions for the jackets you already have). As my jackets are too short in order to just use a baby pouch and that I have not yet really dared to work with zippers yet, I was looking for instructions for a poncho. At the end, I only found two. The first one was one that I could have created on my own and almost settled for (hole in the middle of a piece of fabric, round the bottom if wanted and a second hole for baby's head) when I then found this amazingly simple, yet very effective guide on creating a No-Sew Babywearing Fleece Poncho.

So I went shopping at a discounter this morning, picked out two fleece blankets that I found nice, and used the napping time of Little Miss Madam to cut and knot. The poncho itself took just over half an hour but I thought it looked a bit boring. So it was then I decided to 'sew' for the No-Sew Poncho and created some butterflies for the front. This is was came out:

I am not really great with applications but I think I can dare to brave the outside world with this particular result. The 'purple flash' across the breast is the head opening for the baby. Now I only need to make Little Miss Madam a scarf for her neck - net browsing for this has already begun...