It has been quite a while since I buckled down and worked on a batch of baby shoes. But I’m feeling inspired to make baby-ish things these days (gee, I wonder why?) and I really have been wanting to repopulate my shop a little.
I couldn’t help but pick a couple pairs to keep for myself. I have several more pairs of shoes in various stages of completion, and I am itching to buy some more cute prints.
This page is still under construction.
Basic Mei Tai starts at $48.
Any sort of fabric can be used for the “public” side of the Mei Tei. It
is the structure of the Mei Tai that gives the strength, and that is
usually twill, canvas, or denim.
My basic Mei Tai includes your
choice of a padded or unpadded back rest (body of carrier), and straps up to five inches
wide. Wider or longer straps require more fabric (+$5). I can also
customize your Mei Tai to include a pocket (+$5), a loop for attaching
toys (+$2), padded straps (+$10), or any other modification you can
think of.
*NOTE* The Mei Tais on this page are NOT FOR SALE. If you’d like to purchase a Mei Tai or instigate a custom order, please visit my BrambleBaby store. If you have any questions, please ask away!
This is my personal Mei Tai. It’s a basic model with no padding and regular straps.
This one has a padded body, unpadded straps.
This style has a padded body and extra wide, pleated straps.
Last week I cut out a bunch of shoes, but I didn’t get a chance to work on them until last night.
I’ve got some brights, some vintage, and some Saint Patty’s Day shoes coming up. Some are already in my shop.
I’m also really looking forward to receiving a big ribbon order I put in recently for pretty grosgrain ribbon. It’s for my new style of fancy baby girl shoes.
I’ve tweaked the pattern just a little since I made this pair, to include a little bit of elastic in the heel. So not only are they totally adorable, but they’re just as practical as my original shoes. I’m loving the vintage/retro look for these, so I’m scouring my stash for tiny bright calicoes, tone on tone geometrics, and pindots. The eyelets are applied with my vintage Bates eyeleter, inherited from my Great Aunt Becky.
1 March 2007 – Update: I’m putting these up in my shop after all. As soon as they’re all there, I’ll take down most of these pictures.
Here they are! There are only a few more that aren’t pictured, because they’re still on the ironing board getting their final touch ups. You can see an earlier post about these bibs here. Bibs are all quilt shop quality prints with a layer of warm & natural cotton batting inside. The back is white chenille from a damaged bedspread. They all have pearl snaps and rick rack. Most of the rick rack is vintage, too.
This is the first time I’ve tried posting anything for sale on my blog, so please bear with me while I figure out the best way to do things. For this round, you can either post a comment (the little link at the bottom of this post) with what you want, or send me an email at anniet at! backwoodshome.com, then I’ll email you a Paypal invoice.
$10 each, which includes first class US shipping. If you’re outside the US, you’ll have to chip in a little for that. I can send flat rate international mail to just about anywhere for $5.25.
One more thing, then I’ll show you the pictures… If you’d like me to add another snap to make these more adjustable, just let me know and I’ll do it for free!
You can click on any of the pictures to see a bigger view. Okay!
Paper Dolls – B
Pink rick rack, white pearl snap.
Stars and Stripes – A
White rick rack, red snap.
Fairy Kingdom – A
Red rick rack, red pearl snap.
Fairy Kingdom – B
Lavender rick rack, white pearl snap.
See Jane Golf – A
Red rick rack, red pearl snap.
At the Park – B
Pink rick rack, white pearl snap.
Waves – A
Mint rick rack, white pearl snap.
Kitty Meow – A
Super vintage orange, black, and white rick rack, white pearl snap.
I’m so proud of myself. I’m finishing projects! (Hey, Mom!
Did you hear that? I’m FINISHING stuff! Isn’t that exciting?)
This week I:
Finished two custom-ordered baby girl sweaters. They came
out beautiful! I couldn’t find suitable buttons for them, so I decided to knit
some buttons, and they are just perfect. Blocked them, made pretty tags, and
packaged them up for two very special January babies.
Made a custom-ordered pair of baby shoes.
Knit a few dishcloths (including the “ball-band dishcloth”
featured in Mason-Dixon Knitting), and crocheted three new potholders for us. I
was given a lovely set of these potholders as a bridal shower gift, and always
intended to figure out the pattern. Finally did! Used up about one pound of
Peaches & Crème yarn. (Still have almost two pounds to go.)
Reattached a button to my favorite dress, which has been
languishing on the mending pile for two years. (TWO years—for ONE button…
sigh.)
Undid the crocheted seams of a baby sweater I knit before I
was married, then re-did them properly using mattress stitch. Removed the too-small
buttons, and replaced them with a larger set. Now the sweater is blocking on
the ironing board.
Finished frogging a handknit thrifted sweater. The yarn is
beautiful peach mercerized cotton, about dk or light worsted weight.
Also frogged a half-knitted garter stitch blanket, after I
realized I had mixed dyelots. I never really liked it anyway.
Finished two “heartbreakingly cute” baby sweaters featured
in Mason-Dixon Knitting. I started them sometime in the fall. Both are cotton
(one knit from the above mentioned cotton). Knit a little hat to go with one.
Crocheted a fluffy scarf using the biggest crochet hook I’ve
ever seen in my life. Used up several odd-ball skeins of Lion Brand “Jiffy”
yarn that I’ve had for ages. Some of it was leftover from a lap blanket I made
for The Man when we were dating, some was my Baba’s, and one skein I recognize
as the leftovers from a sweater Grandma Kathy knit for my middle brother.
Made 14 cloth menstrual pads using the incredibly excellent
pattern and directions from Adahy (http://shewhorunsintheforest.googlepages.com),
and by so doing, reduced my flannel stash a bit. Also gave the snap press a
little exercise. These are great! I love them. And anyone who is suffering under the delusion of ickyness–I’ve been cloth diapering for almost three years, now. This is way less gross.
Boxed up a bunch of hand-knitted hats to send to the Dulaan Project. More about that here: http://www.fireprojects.org/dulaan.htm
Cut out a bunch of new shoes for the shop. Look how cute!
Whew! Time for a hot tea break. 
On Saturday I, along with immense help from Erik, participated in my first craft fair.
We started the day like any important day–with a big breakfast at our local diner, The Carousel Cafe. (I got french toast… again.) Then off to set up on our one little table. My, oh my, did we learn a lot!
1) I need better displays. My table was cluttered. My garment rack threatened to tip over in the soft sand, so I had to tie it up. There wasn’t nearly enough space alloted to each vendor, so I had to put my rack in front of my table, with then blocked half of my table. I’m going to look into getting some peg board and building some racks.
2) I need (want very much) a pop up tent. Although there were nice big tents, the tables were lined up on the edges of them. Customers got to walk down the center in the shade. We got to sit in the sun all day. Erik rigged up a bit of temporary shade for us, but it only worked for a little while before the sun had moved again. A pop up tent would also help with problem number 1, because I could use it as a display aide.
3) I need signs. I knew I needed these, and I just didn’t have time to make them ahead of time. Nobody knew what my pincushions were. (Um… I guess nobody here sews?) Not many people knew what "vintage" meant either.
Despite my table’s definite shortcomings, we made enough that we could go out to dinner and celebrate afterwards. We got a couple cute goodies while we were there, too. Erik bought a really cute fleece scarf for Olga with Scottie dogs on it. I bought her a pair of socks with crocheted trim from this talented lady. And Erik bought me a project bag made out of old cammies. The man knows me… he said it looked like just the right size to hold a small knitting project. He pinned one of his old name tapes on the pocket for me. I love it!
There are two more craft fairs (that I know about) coming up. One in November at the Elks Lodge, and one in December on base again. I’m going to work on solving the above problems, then I’m going to go for it!
Yesterday, to wind down from all the excitement on Saturday, I knit two little hats. One is for Gavin, and the little one is just right for Olga’s dolly. The yellow yarn is KnitPicks Wool of the Andes. The green is a little bit of leftover yarn from a soaker I knit a couple years ago for a swap. It’s from Little Turtle Knits. The tiny bit of varigated orange/yellow/green was a precious little scrap of Polwarth wool I got during a trip to Manitoba, Canada when Olga was a baby.
I made a big basket-full of pincushions for the fair coming up next Saturday. I used some of the hundreds of thousands of six-inch cotton squares that threaten our very lives every time we venture into the garage. Each "pyn pillow" has two vintage (or at least grubby) buttons. When Erik came home to see me working on these, I know I saw him shake his head and mutter something like "…totally lost it, now." I’m just not sure ONE basket of these is enough. What do you think?
I finally got around to making Gavin a new Mei Tai, like I’ve been promising for ages. I got some wonderful fabric from Fabric.com for this. The kids’ room is decorated with cowboys and farm animals, so I thought it was just perfect. The cowboy fabric is a wonderf ul quality quilting cotton from Alexander Henry. The back and straps are a medium weight cotton twill. I made up my own pattern after looking at a bunch of Mei Tais on various websites. My old Mei Tai was way too big; this one is about 15 inches wide and 18 inches tall. The long straps are about 55 inches long. I was worried that they’d be too short for Erik, but they seem to be right for him, too. Not that he’ll ever use this. But, you know.. just in case. (The one time I asked him to wear Gavin in public he made such a huge fuss about it that I will never–NEVER–ask him to do it again. But if he ever offers, this one is nice and plain and brown on the reverse. He won’t be able to complain quite so vehemently.)
This pin just didn’t turn out right. I think I’m going to clip off the buttons and put some different ones on. I used one of Molly Chicken’s wonderful tutorials for last-minute brooches. I want to make a bunch of little brooches for the fair, but I am not very good at these little things.
I’m getting ready to exhibit at my first craft fair in two weeks. I’m starting to get nervous. I know I don’t have enough inventory yet, so I’ve been very busy making goodies. It’s been fun. I did a mock set up last night on our dinner table with all of my things, and I think it will look really good. I have two tablecloths, one red and one orange, that I’ll use, and I think they’ll really stand out. Erik doesn’t think there will be many "shoppers" there, since it will be on base. I think it will be okay, even if it’s just an opportunity to hand out my business cards.
I had some wonderful pocket mirrors and bottle opener keychains made up especially for this event. Kate at badbuttons.com made these for me. She did an awesome job, and I highly reccommend her. Her turnaround is faster than lightning. I wanted to make some vintage military buttons, and ended up at the Library of Congress website and found all these wonderful campaign posters from WWI. They’re all in the public domain, now, so I could use them. There are six images, for now, but I can’t wait to do more.
I’ve also been making a bunch of my soft cloth baby shoes. They’re coming out so cute! I’m doing all one size right now, but I’ve been getting a bunch of requests for larger sizes, so I’ll do them soon, too. Here are a couple pairs I’ve sold recently.
I have a couple purses made up, too. I have a ton more upholstery fabric, and I’ve been debating whether or not to make more. This has a lining of some wild vintage kitchen fabric. It still had the selvedges on it, but it reminded me of curtains or sheets from the seventies. It was way cool.
Then of course there are all of the baby clothes I have in my shop. These will all be coming, too.
I also want to make:
4 or 5 Mei Tais. I’ll be wearing Gavin in mine all day, and I always get lots of questions about them.
Pillowcase dresses. They’re just so cute!
Bibs–but I think these will have to wait.
Can I do all this in two weeks? What would YOU want to see?
