I fell in love with an onbuhimo carrier at a babywearing meeting a while back (yes, these meetings really do exist) and put in an order with a local work at home mom to have her make me one. Unfortunately, she's got a little one with some health concerns and let me know up front that it would take her a while. I thought I could wait patiently, but I was obviously kidding myself. With the ridiculous temperatures we are having recently I decided it was time to make my own. Unfortunately, there are pretty much zero instructions on the internet for this. So, I did some research, inspected the mei tai I already own, and came up with a plan. My goal was to have something safe and supportive, but without a lot of layers. I also wanted nice, wide, comfortable straps. I will say that I'm a smaller gal (under 5 feet and relatively thin) so if you are larger you may want to enlarge the pattern and possibly use longer straps. This would be a great discussion to have at your local babywearing meeting!
Remember, I don't do this for a living, I cannot guarantee that this won't fall apart the first time you use it, and you are making and using this carrier at your own risk! Also, please don't steal my pattern and make these to sell. If anyone is going to make a buck off of my hard work it should be me and I have no desire to do so! On that positive note, here are my instructions!
Materials:
2 yards of bottom weight fabric1/2 yard polar fleece
Coordinating thread (I went with a stronger thread)
Two 2 inch rings. I picked up two steel rings from the local hardware store, but I hear lots of great recommendations for Sling Rings. Either way, know how much weight they have been tested for (mine apparently can hold 200 pounds a piece)!
And the obvious ones:
Sewing machine, pins, measuring tape (I also really found my quilt ruler helpful), scissors, iron and ironing board, and rubberbands.
Directions:
So you have all your beautiful supplies and I know you are just itching to get started. But you have to wait! You need to wash your fabric first. This is a baby carrier, it will inevitably get drooled on, spit up on, peed on, etc. You'd really hate to put all this work in and have the thing shrink in an odd fashion once its all done. So toss your fabric and fleece in the washer and dryer and wait patiently for it to be done.
Since I couldn't find a pattern that I liked online I used the washing and drying time to mock up a few patterns out of newspaper to find one I liked. I ended up making a short, narrow body with a curve in the sides to allow as much air flow as possible. (and once my LO is up from nap I'll add the measurements for you)
Hopefully your materials are dry now so its time to start cutting. I bought 60 inch fabric so its was easy to get my two 11 x 60 straps. Then it took some creative layouts to figure out the optimal placement since I had a striped pattern and wanted one side to be horizontal and the other vertical. I've also included a drawing of that in case you are interested. (okay, that will also be after nap) Since my patterns are drawn to be cut on the fold make sure you lay them out appropriately! You should end up with two hood pieces, two body pieces, two very long shoulder straps (11 x 60 each), and one waist strap (11 x 17) out of your pretty fabric and two pieces of shoulder padding (15 x 17 each) and one piece of waist padding (10 x 17) from your fleece. We can cut out the hood straps and loops from the scrap.
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| Hood, body, and waist strap pieces ready to go |
Straps:
Fold your straps in half and iron a crease so its easy to find the middle. Open those babies back up and iron in a 1/2 inch seam allowance down either side. Then, layer in some fleece. I chose to do a triple layer of fleece because I intend to wear this for good chunks of time. Lay your fleece down approximately 6 inches from the top of your strap, close the strap, and then pin in place. I wanted a tapered end so at the end opposite the padding I put in a slight angle.
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| Crease down center, 1/2 inch seam allowance, fleece 6 inches from the end |
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| Tapered end |
Now its time to sew. Starting at the top, stitch down one side nice and close to the edge to close the seam up, go around the bottom, and back up the folded side (just to keep things looking nice). Also stitch two equally-spaced lines down the length of your padding. This will keep it from slipping around and also give it a nice look. A hint I picked up was to not stitch farther than your padding, though, or your fabric may start to bunch up. For ease of use later roll your strap up, leaving roughly 10 inches out, and secure with a rubberband. (Or a hair tie if that is what's close!) Repeat with your second strap.
****At this point my camera batteries died and wouldn't you know I had no more in the house. I'll be making a second run at this pattern for a friend so I will try to remember to take more pictures. In the mean time if you have questions please don't hesitate to comment.
Hood:
First, make your hood straps and loops. Cut two strips of 2 x 14 inch fabric. Fold the long edges to meet in the middle, fold in half, and press. Fold the raw ends of one edge under and press again. Repeat with strip number two. For the loops do the same thing only with 2 x 3 inch strips and fold both edges' raw ends under. Now here's the easy part! Lay your two hood pieces with pretty sides together, slip one hood strap in each top corner with roughly 1/2 inch raw edge sticking out. Now sew around the top and edges, leaving the bottom open for easy flipping. Now just flip it right side out and you should have a hood with two straps dangling from it. See, easy!
Put it all together:
Time to put everything together. Lay one layer of body fabric down pretty side up, then center your hood on top with raw edges lined up together. Next we are going to place the straps. You are going to want your strap to come out of the body of your carrier at roughly a 45 degree angle. This is one instance where my quilt ruler came in handy. So, lay one strap on top at a 45 degree angle with the 6 inch unpadded portion outside of the body. (This is the portion that will stay inside the carrier once we flip it.) Pin it into position. Then, lay your second strap on top of it and fold your fabric in half. This should make sure your straps come out at the same angle, as I'm told having them off will make baby hang to one side and we don't want that! Pin that second strap in place and unfold. Now lay your second body layer on top with pretty side down. Pin all around the edges, making sure not to catch anything other than the body, the part of the straps that will be attached to the body, and the connecting portion of the hood in the pins. Now sew your way around the entire body of your carrier except for the bottom, once again making sure not to catch any stray parts in your needle. I'm a bit of an over-sewer so I went around twice.
Remove all of your pins and flip the carrier right side out. It should now look like a bottomless onbu! Take it over and press it all nice and flat once again. Now its time for the ever important X box. No, not the gaming console, the stitching that is going to keep this whole thing together under the weight of your adorable little bundle of joy! Find the outline of your straps inside the body of your carrier and stitch a square around the inside edge of this. Then, stitch an X into it. See, an X box! Repeat on your other side.
| Example of an X Box |
Once your X boxes are done you can top stitch all around the edge of your carrier very close to the edge, once again leaving the bottom open. Again, I'm an over-sewer so I did this twice, right next to each other.
Now is a great time to add your hood loops. Pin your loops roughly 7 inches from the top of your shoulder straps so they are easy to access in a front or back carry. Since I wanted my carrier to be reversible I did loops on both sides of the straps. Make sure your raw ends are folded under and sew them to the straps.
Waist strap:
Fold your waist strap in half lengthwise and iron a crease down the middle. Unfold and iron in a 1/2 inch seam allowance on both sides. Lay two layers of fleece down for padding and refold. Fold under your two remaining raw ends and iron them flat. Then slip your onbu body approximately 2 inches into the pocket of your waist strap and padding and pin into place, making sure your padding is tucked in and your seam allowances are flat and pretty. Now stitch all the way around. Once again, I did this twice. As with your shoulder straps, stitch two equally-spaced lines down the length of your padding. Now place a ring on one end, keeping it close to the body, and stitch it into place. This was the epitome of my over-sewing as I'm pretty sure I did about six zig-zag passes on each ring. Repeat on the other end.
And now you should have a brag-worthy homemade onbuhimo!
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