Amping up the mei tai inventory

We got a boxer puppy recently. Jack, he's five months old now, and we took him to puppy kindergarten classes, but I'm wanting to get him "further education"! : ) So I'm going to start trying to sell mei tais more actively in the next couple months so that we can afford that! So yesterday I finished two more mei tais from some extra fabric I've been meaning to use. I hope to finish two more by Monday.

The one below does not have a pocket as I didn't have enough fabric to make one that would coodinate. So it will be sold for less.

For pictures of all the mei tais I have in inventory visit: http://coffmanfamily.weebly.com/milestone-mei-tai.html

Other things I've been sewing...

Skirts! Or trying to anyway. I have a nice freind that asked me to make her a long skirt a couple months ago. So I made two, because the first of my creations are always rough! These are pictures of the first one I made.

And then for Christmas I wanted to make the girls bubble skirts from some cute fabric I got at a good price. And i ended up making Cal a tie to match! : ) So fun! Not flawless, but still cute!

Happy Babies Part five

Here is sweet baby Chosen cuddled up to her mommy's back! Her daddy owns a barber shop and often cuts hair with Chosen on his back!! I'm still bugging them for a picture of that! : )
And here is Cal and I from yesterday. We took the kids bowling for lots of fun and a tired mommy and daddy! You can see the wet spot where Cal was chewing on the strap, lovely.

The latest and other stuff...

This is my new sewing nuke in our new home in Georgia! It's in the playroom too, which is technically a formal dining room. But we decided that with young children a formal dining room that is carpeted is a joke! It's nice to have a good space for my sewing though. Usually the kids are playing behind me or napping when I'm sewing. I'm using a dining room chair for now, but we intend to buy me a sewing chair to keep at my desk eventually.

Here is my inventory as of November 6th. I have four and for the first time, most of them are girly colors!

This is one of the mei tai's I did this week. It's up for grabs.

And this is one that was ordered that I will be shipping soon. Everyone seems to love the poka dots!

Sequel to yesterday's post!

Thank you, Mothering! Carseats are for cars! Imagine that?!
http://www.mothering.com/green-living/car-seats-are-for-cars

Why wear your baby??

Okay, so I wear my babies, and even my toddlers sometimes! But when they are little babies, it's a must for me. There is nothing I detest more then an infant carseat.

I developed this hatred when my second daughter, Bryse was a baby. Her feelings for the large plastic container were contagious evidently. Everytime I would put her in it to go somewhere she would lose it! I mean, horrible crying the entire trip. One of the biggest mistakes Robert and I have made in parenting was deciding to take a trip to Texas to see his family when Bryse was five weeks old, because none of them had seen her yet. It was a seven hour drive (that obviously took longer because we stopped so much to console her) and she spent an accumulative amount of 45 minutes NOT crying on the trip. It was horrible.

The last thing I would've ever done would've been to carry her around in the carseat. As soon as we got to our destination I yanked her out of the carseat as quickly as I could (I'm a huge rule girl, would never take my baby out of the carseat while driving down the road) and place her in the sling, mei tai, or just my arms. Where she would melt into me and stop crying. Even prior to my knowledge of "real" slings, I would use a snugli with my oldest (ACK! They are horrible!). She was more laid back, so I sometimes used the carseat as a carrier, but still didn't like doing it. It hurts! It's big and awkward! I can't wrap my mind around using it as often as some people use it! I've known some to carry their babies in carseats for as long as the first year!! My sweet babies are little for only so long! I want to snuggle them while they have that lovely baby smell!

Anyway, I thought I would share some pictures I found of people carrying carseats. Unfortunatly, the only ones I could find were of celebrities. Oh well, they still look awkward and uncomfortable carrying them.

This first picture is an advertisement for a strap you can use to attach the large awkward contraption to you!!! It has GOT to be a joke. My word.

And now, the alternative....baby wearing. Keeping your baby right up next to your body. Making life so much happier for baby and so much easier for you!!

This is my mom holding Bryse in one of the first mei tais I made. Bryse is asleep and Memaw is in heaven snuggling with her grandbaby! Now, if this was a carseat picture, the grandma would be sitting with a plastic container on the ground next to her. Baby out of her reach. : (

This here is Cal when he was a couple months old hanging out on me while I do stuff around the house.

There are so many great reasons to wear our babies! One of the main reasons for me, is that I don't want to lug around a huge carseat! Here is another list of reasons to wear your baby: http://www.twohipmoms.com/pages/wearing.php and http://continuum-family.com/index.php?main_page=babywearing

And one of my favorite sites to direct new moms to: http://www.peppermint.com/comparison.html It compares all the different types of slings so that you can choose which will work best for you!

Our Family blog

http://coffmanfamily.weebly.com
On a personal note, I started a family blog for our loved ones to keep track of us! Enjoy!

Finally!!!

We are in Georgia!!! And settled enough for me to get back to sewing! Luckily my Sister-in-law was here this last week to help prompt me back to the real world! I made her a camo mei tai a couple years ago and she was ready for something different. So yesterday we went to the fabric store (after we found one!) and bought the fabric she wanted. With her help I think it took us only about an hour to finish it! Not counting cutting and washing time. Check it out!!
And on a cuter note, with her extra fabric I made Bryse a sling for her baby dolls and, more importantly, her "pup pup"...

Happy Babies (er, uh, toddlers!) Part four

A dear friend of mine sent me a picture of her weaing her (rather large) son in her mei tai. Her story is one of my favorites of selling a mei tai, actually. She purchased a mei tai from me to help me fund a wonderful midwife for my homebirth with Cal. You can view her inspirational blog here: http://justaelinn.blogspot.com/ about her journey to Christ. Anyway, her sending this picture, below, made me realise that I haven't posted many pictures of toddlers in my mei tais. Soooo, there ya have it!
This is Darby when she was 3 1/2 years old on her daddy's back.

This is Bryse when she was 2 and 2 months old asleep in the mei tai. She was obviously worn out to fall asleep in it at that age! Although the mei tai has always been her second home....I wonder if it works as a sort of "lovey" for her? And yes, she looks like she's falling out, but trust me, she's not.

And this is Iylona (a friend's little girl) on my back when she was about 1 1/2 year old.

Sweet accomplishment!

I have finished two more mei tais this week already! My kids have been playing so nicely together and given me many opportunities to sew. Thank you, beautiful children!! Anyway, below is a picture of one of my favorite things! A well stocked inventory. Yes, small in some's opinions. But in my eyes, it's the sight of preparedness!! Actually only four of these are true inventory. I owe one to The Little Clothes Line (www.littleclothesline.com) and another is just my old one that I allow people to borrow to see if they like the type of carrier before they buy. But still, I love this picture. And really, if time allows, I have three more to sew before we leave and two of those will go with these too!! : )
Twins! I prefer to sew a couple mei tais at the same time. And my very most favoritest friend in the whole world is expecting around the middle of November and wanted a new mei tai. Unfortunatly I won't be here for the birth, but am honored to make the carrier that sweet baby will be cuddled up in! So I made two, one for her and one for the inventory.

I have been working!! I promise! Just slowly....we are going on 7 1/2 weeks without our daddy around here. And as we approach our date of departure from Springfield (two weeks!) I am running out of ways to get things done with the kids around. So I found a nice little television free in home day care to take the girls to. Just a few hours a day, a few days a week for the next two weeks. I'm doing this in hopes that I can get some sewing and organizing done before we leave without ignoring my girls or putting them in front of a movie. Although, it was hard to say goodbye to them this morning. Especially little Bryse, who has never gone to a consistant child care facility. Church nursery and the Y hardly count for that! She's only there for about an hour! Oh well, she did fine. Anyway, so here are the latest!

Below is a custom burp cloth I made for a friend the other day. It matches her mei tai that I made too.
Just finished these two this morning while Cal slept! The one on the left is a new fabric.

This is an old picture that I forgot to post. I made two mei tais like this for a friend that purchased them. Everything that is in the picture is what I include. Except, I didn't put the mesh bag in this pic for some reason....mmm....

Bragging Rights!

Just cuz I have the right to brag and show pictures off of my kids! Here are just a FEW of the beautiful pictures that came of our little photo shoot the other day. Meet Darby (age 5), Bryse (age 2), and Cal (age 7 months).

Lisa and Alice's Mei tai

I have a friend that is fixing to have her second baby, a little girl any day now! She takes beautiful pictures, so we did a swap. I made her a mei tai and she took some pictures of my kids! I have to say I really love her taste in fabric! She bought her own and chose this giraffe print with pink straps to feminise it! It turned out really cute, I'm definatly going to make more like this for my inventory to sell to other moms! Plus, this was a little triumph for me, cuz it's the first mei tai I have completed since Daddy left for Officer Basic two weeks ago. Yeay!
Thanks, Lisa!

Stocking my inventory and some personal stuff...

I'm frantically trying to get some mei tais in my inventory. Before my son was born in December I had stocked it pretty well, but, alas, it has dwendelled to nothing. Which is good, I guess!
The reason why I'm stocking up is because our family is making a big transition. My dear husband is officially done with everything that is needed for his doctrate in Psychology except for his internship. He got commissioned this morning as a Captain in the Army, leaves for Officer Basic Monday, and then me and children will join him for duty in Augusta, GA on September 19th. Phew! Lots going on around here. What this means is that I will be "single parenting it" for nine weeks while he's at Basic. In which time, I hope to get all my loose fabrics put together in order to have an inventory of 5 or 6 mei tais. I finished these two this week:
The one on the right is my favorite, I just really like that pattern! If I had remembered that I had it, I may have kept it for Cal. But oh well. Anyway, these two are up for grabs.

Other than that, we are savoring this weekend as our last with Daddy for a long time. Much longer then ever before. And unlike some husbands, mine in unique. He does stuff.....alot of stuff around the house and with the kids. We truely are partners. It's gonna be rough.

Happy Babies!! (part three)

Here's Kelly and Bristol! Kelly is a friend of mine from an online forum. She bought her own fabric. I think her mei tai turned out almost as cute as her little Bristol! Gotta love pictures of new babies!! ; )

Happy Babies (part two)

Meet the Greens'! Miriam is a good friend of mine that just had her third baby. Since she has twin toddlers too, she was in desperate need to carry that sweet baby Stella hands free! This is a picture she allowed me to show of her beautiful family. Tucked safely in her mei tai is Baby Stella. You can't see her, but trust me she's just as beautiful as her big sisters! I got to cuddle and soak up her sweetness a couple weeks ago!

Happy Babies!!

This is my friend, Audrey. She was, literally, the second person I made a mei tai for, right after me! The first two that we had were pretty rough, so when I improved the pattern I sent her another one. This is two pictures of her wearing her second child, Brooklyn. Brooklyn and Bryse (my second little girl) have a lot in common, they have both been raised in their Milestone Mei Tai! I remember even putting Bryse on my back when I was 8 months pregnant with Cal. She was teething and just needed some close mommy time!

Thanks, Audrey for letting me share your photos!

For Us!!

So below are some pictures of my most rescent "selfish sewing"! Cal (my little man)'s new mei tai. Everytime i put him in my old one his big sister Bryse (two years old) got mad. "That's my mei tai!!" And ofcourse she would share, but I had a hankerin' for a new one anyway! ; ) And then the hair clip organizer i made for my girls. You'll notice we have quite the collection of Ribbies Hair Clippies! We're big fans! www.ribbiesclippies.com

Latest stuff...

I have a sweet friend that is expecting her third little girl NEXT WEEK!! How exciting! Anyway, she has twin two year old girls too, so she hit me up for a mei tai and bought her own fabric. I used the extra fabric I had left over to make her custom burp cloths and a hair clip organizer (I've been experimenting with these, made one for my girls too).

The Mei Tais

The original:
This is just your typical mei tai! A pocket on one side and straps to coordinate with the body. I tend to use tan or dark brown. But have used black, yellow, and multi colored depending on what the mommy wants! The price on these are negotiable if you want to buy your own fabric. Otherwise they are $60.

Reversable Mei Tai:

My personal mei tai is reversable with coordinating fabrics. These pictures below are of a mei tai that is reversable with the same fabric as the straps on the reverse side. This is GREAT for daddy's that like to wear baby, but aren't quite as concerned about fashion as us mommies are! ; ) There is a pocket on each side and they run $70.

Custom Milestone Mei Tai:

This is an example of one of my custom mei tais. I made this for my brother-in-law out of his old marine fatigues from serving our country in Iraq. I have also done custom mei tais for people in a patch work type style. Customs are much more labor intensive and difficult, so they run about $80.