Dienstag, 16. November 2010

Some yummy purple fishies....

While I was organizing pics I thought that it could be helpful to add another review here as well. I wrote it for some baby wearing friends a couple days ago…. so sorry if this post will be too specific…. wrap geekery at it’s best…. ;o)

Last week I got my first wrap in a Baby-Alpaca blend and this time I was sure that this one is a keeper. It is purple, it is soft, it has a nice substantial feeling…. and it has some cute fishies on it that our kids love….

I’m talking about Elburg Alpaca Fishies.
45% alpaca wool, 55% cotton
The purple threads are cotton, the natural ones baby alpaca and the size 6 weights around 760gr.
New for a fish Didy is that there are significantly more of them on a wrap and they are spread out. There is still one little fish swimming in the opposite direction, but it is not longer on top of the wrap ( if that makes sense ).
I would describe it as a semi thick wrap with a decent amount of stretch. The stretch is similar to Pamir if you can try to compare a wool wrap with a cotton wrap at all, but it really reminds me of an EC Pamir when it comes to the wrapping qualities.
It feels and wraps a bit thicker than it actually is and has a good amount of cush.
Freshly washed I felt like I was standing in the middle of a goat farm, but when dry the wrap doesn’t smell different than other wool wraps.
After the bath it is still 70,5cm wide so not narrow at all….
The structure of the alpaca fibre is different from sheep wool. Alpacas have no lanolin and therefore it doesn’t make sense to use detergent with lanolin.
When you open the box the wrap feels a bit scratchy in the first place and even after the first bath you wonder if this wrap will get super soft. I ironed it when still wet and hung dry and that helped a lot to soften the wrap.
 



 
In the pics you can see how fuzzy the alpaca threads are. When you close your eyes this wrap seriously feels like a super yummy wool sweater – especially on the “wrong” side ( and I love the look of this side as well ).

Due to the long alpaca fibres this wrap feels like a wool wrap, but shimmers like a linen blend. Love this!

The purple cotton threads are ( almost ) identical with the Viola Indio. The also purple Amethyst Lilies have a tiny little bit more blue in it. But that comes also due to the fact that there is more contrast in the lilies. The alpaca wool threads have a creamy natural colour, not a bright white you can find in the Amethyst Lilies.

I have made a few comparison pics with Indio Viola ( all cotton ),Amethyst Lilies ( ramie-silk-cotton-blend ), Ellipsen Viola ( all cotton ) and Indio lila-royal v2 ( linen blend ).




 

This is a perfect fall and winter wrap. It is warm and yummy and the colour is gorgeous IMO. It wraps almost itself and is very supportive even with a heavier baby and toddler.
While I like the ramie lilies for a smaller baby in summer I would choose this in a heartbeat if I had to decide between those two.
This wrap absolutely qualifies as one of my favourite fall and winter wraps right now. Love the amount of cush, love the width, love that it offers a lot of support without being too bulky and could pet it for hours….





Perhaps I can add some thoughts after I had the chance for more test runs but for now that’s it….

Montag, 15. November 2010

A little black dress.... or wrap....

As I already said I love wraps and the fact that there are so many different ones of them. There are long wraps, shorter ones, thick, thin, bright and classy ones. All cotton wraps or blends with hemp, linen, silk, wool or cashmere plus some exotic fibres like kapok or ramie….

But the essential thing that all wraps have in common is the fact that you can use them to hold your baby and toddler close to your heart, go to places where you never could with a stroller and get so many things done while your baby is sleeping safe on your back….

With the release dates of different fibre blends it is mostly a seasonal thing and right now we are in the middle of the wool season with so many wonderful new releases…. can we talk about wool fluffy heaven?....

Today a new wrap arrived and it is what I would call the perfect little black dress when you think about wraps….

Didymos Stendahl with Baby Alpaca…. hmmmmm…. doesn’t it sound incredibly yummy?

And the look of it is simply breathtaking.

The wrap is a double face weave, with 55% black cotton on one side and 45% Alpaca in a deep berry red on the other.

In a Size 6 the wrap weights 692gr and that’s around 70gr less than the Elburg Alpaca Fishies I have….

The linen version of the Stendahl wrap that was released this spring weights around 920gr in the same size.

Now back to the Alpaca one….
I would describe the wrap as a thinner one. The weave is flat and it has not the cush the Elburg Fishies have. Granted it isn’t washed yet, but I’m pretty sure it will not fluff up too much due to the weave. The wrap itself looks amazing and I can totally see this as the perfect Christmas or New Year’s Eve wrap. A very classy looking party wrap with a decent shimmer but also super cool with a simple shirt and dark jeans… . It folds up nicely and I think if I would love thinner wraps more than I do it would qualify as a permastash wrap here…. Unfortunately I don’t love thinner wraps too much…. and right now I’m not absolutely sure if I should keep it or not…. 
 
Here are some pics:







I wanted to make a proper comparison pic with the linen version of Stendahl on top…. and that brought me in serious trouble…. 

I just love the look of the Alpaca version. The berry based red is exactly what I wanted in a wrap. Perfect, classy, not too red, pure understatement….
On the other hand the linen Stendahl is a significantly thicker wrap and I adore the wrapping qualities this wrap provides….
So I have two wraps here. One has the perfect colour but is probably too thin for my taste while the other one has the perfect amount of thickness but the colour is not the most flattering on me….

I guess I will have to think about it a little bit longer, given them a try and then make my decision….


Sonntag, 14. November 2010

It’s all about wraps…. and more….

In our house it is all about wraps, wrapping and baby wearing in general.
 
When we started babywearing 14 years ago with our first born everybody looked at us like we were an interesting species from mars…. We were students and it felt pretty crunchy, pretty cool…. and perfectly right.
 
Before Dominik was born I worked as a physiotherapist and during the pregnancy I was already sure that I wanted to make things different. So we chose an ambulant birth in our local hospital ( I think we were the first or second couple in that year and our son was born in October! ) and planned to breastfeed and of course to wear our baby….
 
Most books I read in this time still described daily routines like feeding every four hours, an own baby bed for the baby and a couple more things that felt simply wrong.
 
Our son was born on a Sunday morning 9 days after his due date. We went from a party direct to the hospital, had a pretty cool ambulant birth and showed up three hours later at the houses of our parents to show them our little big surprise…. then back home and snuggling in our bed as a brand new family of three….
 
The first night Dominik slept in his own baby bed because that was what all the great books suggested and while he was asleep, I was not. 
 
In the second night I decided to trust my feelings as a mother, took our little cutie and put him in our bed…. and so our journey of co-sleeping started….
 
With wrapping we started when Dominik was three weeks old. It was not that easy to find a shop that sold baby wraps and in times without internet it took me a lot of research. We drove all the way with our brand new baby and finally stopped at a little esoteric and alternative looking shop. The colours of the wraps they sold seemed to be a bit….. ummm…. interesting and we went with a pretty colourful Lana Solara in a 4m length…. The tying instructions were almost not existing and it took me some time to figure out how to start with this long piece of fabric.
 
But it did the trick. Dominik just started with the typical baby colics and this wrap was the only way we were able to stop him from screaming non stop in the evening. It was such an amazing feeling to have this little baby wrapped on my chest and I enjoyed every single moment of it. When he was three months old we went to a New Year’s party and Dominik slept most of the time in his wrap. It was awesome….
 
…. and this was the moment I decided to become a baby wearing teacher…. and another journey begun….
 
By the way…. we still have this Lana Solara. It is the wrap we used with our first kids the most and there are so many beautiful memories woven into it. Moments I will keep forever in my heart and I'm so incredibly thankful for….