Cotton Cloud: Basanti

We were lucky to participate in the Cotton Cloud European Tester Journey this summer. Even though I have had quite some handwoven wraps passing by, Cotton Cloud was yet new to me and only familiar through their sister brand for machine woven wraps, Cotton Colors (read my tester review of Agni Blush here). 

Cotton Cloud is a Russian brand. The tester that traveled to us was a 4.5m wrap from a warp named Basanti. This warp has an amazing colorway from shades of purple and lilac to light and darker blue, spiced up with threads in lemon like yellow. The tester has a black weft which together with crackle weave really brings the colors of the warp alive. Just like with the previous handwoven tester we had (my review of Paradisaea's The Love That Casts Out Fear is available here), this was another positive experience with black color since it normally is a huge turn-off for me. Also, usually I run away from #teamblue wraps but the mixture of colors in Basanti is simply irresistible and amazingly beautiful.

Basanti is an all-cotton wrap which carries a respectful density of 435gsm. Against all odds it does not feel blankety in a negative sense but probably due to the crackle weave it feels rather airy and textured in hand. I have had an all-cotton handwoven wrap with 500gsm last year and there the plain weave made the wrap feel really dense and blanket-like. Basanti is still rather new after visiting a couple of homes before us and I guess it will become softer in use. Already now Basanti comes across as the kind of lovely fluffy "take-my-sorrows-away" wrap which everyone wants to own to cuddle in during autumn and winter season ahead.



My wrappee is an 18-months-old toddler with some 12,5kg. We wore Basanti in front wrap cross carry with simple and spread out shoulder passes, ruck sack carry and double hammock tied under bum. Basanti has a nice diagonal stretch but is grippy enough to make the wrap job of these basic carries easy despite the thickness of the wrap.

In a fwcc our dear toddler stayed weightlessly in place with just a simple knot on the back and we could have kept cuddling in the wrap for ages! Later we also enjoyed wrap naps in a fwcc with spread shoulder passes while traveling in a train. Spreading the shoulder passes after the carry was already tied was, however, a bit challenging as I could not avoid loose parts on passes. But this was more of an aesthetic problem due to the density of the wrap than anything risking the carry itself.

If you want to have something (for yourself and others) to look at, my recommendation for wraps with this thickness is definitely a carry like ruck sack where you get one pretty and huge knot in front for people to stare at ;) Single layered carry with a toddler felt nice and only thing I found needing more attention was pleating the wrap nicely on shoulders as there is quite a lot of mass to work with. In the ruck sack, again, the toddler enjoyed wrap naps while we walked in the forest and had a successful transfer in bed afterwards.

We also quickly tested a double hammock with Basanti. The middle marker in Cotton Cloud wraps is simple and elegant and it came nicely on its point. However, I needed some helping hands in getting the knot nicely tied under bum. Probably practice makes perfect here and the lovely outcome definitely is worth the little exercise while wrapping! :)

I have more photos of Basanti available on my Instagram account. Please also check the Cotton Cloud business page and their chatter in Facebook to see more of these beautiful handwoven wraps. Thank you to Cotton Cloud for the tester opportunity! :)

Sling meets: Stepping out from the online world to wrap geek in real life

I was invited by my friend Michèlle from Blissful Blogging to write a guest post about real life babywearing meetings. These babywearing meetings are something that is very close to my heart and I feel the topic is somewhat personal to me, so also getting this post written in a proper manner with everything I want to say has taken quite some time. I am probably still forgetting some important points so I will add a disclaimer right up-front - anything presented in this post are my personal opinions and experiences and in no way does it mean you need to feel the same way about the sling meets or babywearing communities, whether online or offline. I also do not want to understate anyone who is mainly active in only online (or just offline!) babywearing groups - online is simply where it all got started in my case and the following story is what happened beyond the online world.

Lucky us?

As a background, it is interesting to state Michèlle and I have never met in real life and we live over 2000km apart in different countries. We got to know each other through the international online babywearing community and we have stayed in touch and we have together participated in tester wrap rounds and shared tips and advice on babywearing related matters.

Both Michèlle and I love babywearing meet-ups and we have both had people tell us how lucky we are to have our local babywearing communities. We both, however, also know that these local communities did not appear overnight but that, with some effort, anyone can have their own local community. This post is about taking the step to jump from online to offline and form real-life babywearing friendships.

Is there anybody out there?

Online is where everything happens these days. When I started babywearing I also soon found a local babywearing group on Facebook which I joined. I was eager to babywear but with little skills since I - at least as far as I can remember - had never seen someone babywearing in real life. For my impatient nature watching You Tube tutorials to learn carries felt frustrating at that time, so I was desperately looking for peers to help me get started with the journey. I had met the local babywearing consultant in a babies & moms meet, but at that meet people were mainly into baby carriers and not that much into wrapping.

During the months before I joined the online local babywearing group there had been few enquiries about organizing a real-life sling meeting but it seemed they had not been realized for whatever reason. Having freshly joined the community and desperate to "learn from the seniors", I spontaneously started echoing the need for a real-life meeting and quickly got a positive response from two local babywearers.

Time to get real

Here comes the first (and maybe the only) lesson - it is one thing to speak out about an idea, but another to actually start working towards realizing that idea. Even if there is a common understanding on how nice it would be to meet in person, someone's got to take the step to actually organize things. And you have to acknowledge that even if an online group has x number of members, only a very small % of those will likely be active enough to get more engaged (especially in real life).

Packing wraps for a sling meet

After first talking to the other babywearers, I searched for and booked a venue and proposed dates for the meeting. Things instantly became more concrete than the vague "it would be nice to meet" talk and there were already double the number of people expressing their interest in joining the meeting in our local online group.

To boost interest and spread the word about the babywearing meet-up, I created a Facebook event, negotiated food and beverage discounts to participants, took care of menu pre-orders and gathered vouchers and surprise gifts for participants from a few national babywearing and children stores (since I knew these all speak to stay-at-home parents). (Ok, I might have gotten a bit carried away but I love organizing events and this clearly attracted the audience.) Suddenly, we had 18 people signed up for the meeting! And it was all without advertising the meeting anywhere except in our local babywearing group and through word-of-mouth.

Wraps in a sling meet

Wheels start rolling

This (to our standards big) local event ended up being attended by about 16 babywearing or bw-interested parents with their children. It was a success since we not only got to meet each other in real life, but it also served as a kick-off for local real-life babywearing meetings on a more regular basis. When organizing such an event yourself: do remember that a part of the participants only join this type of prepared get-together for the company, free goodies or whatever the reason, without actually being that much into the theme (in this case babywearing). So you can congratulate yourself even if you end up with a small group (i.e. more than yourself that you started with) remaining that want to meet regularly.

 Looking back, in our local babywearing community we are extremely happy with the fact that almost half of those who attended the initial meeting one year ago are still actively babywearing and attending the local meetings, while we also have new active members. We now meet regularly: approximately once a month and the meet-ups are agreed upon very informally in local online babywearing group or through private messages. Having a stable number of active baby wearers also means that anyone can take the initiative of organizing the next get-together and it does not have to remain the responsibility of one or two people.

Broaden your horizon in all ways

Our local babywearing community is not run by an association and we are currently not officially organized. Therefore, we also don't have our own place where we can meet regularly. And it certainly is not easy to find a place where you can form and mess-up huge piles of wraps and carriers while keeping your babies calm and toddlers happy, so be creative. Since the more regular meetings started, we have met in various places - cafeterias, outdoor parks, indoor activity centers, each others' homes... even restaurants where we had booked a separate room to have some privacy when geeking over wraps! Once we also met for a babywearing exercise challenge to walk uphill at a downhill skiing center. Just think outside the box - often a location isn't as busy during the week anyway so they are happy to accommodate if that means business for them.

Local sling meet with visiting babywearers in a kids' indoors activity park!

When you have set up the local framework, do not hesitate to go regional! (Or start regional if there aren't enough local babywearers to begin with.) Our local community was later extended by some 120km to include active babywearers that live in smaller places further away from our town and they have attended our meetings several times. We have been equally happy to welcome babywearers from elsewhere to join our meet-ups whenever they are visiting our town and often we try to specifically organize a get-together when there is a visiting babywearer in town. How have we heard about these visitors? Online in other babywearing groups, of course :) Remember to keep mentioning your local meetings since there are certainly people who find the bigger groups before the local ones. Even now we have a rather solid group of wrap geekers in our town, we well remember how we all started our babywearing journey and want to keep the door open for newcomers - also even if they are not as experiences or "only" wear with a baby carrier or elastic wrap at the moment (and there is certainly nothing wrong with that, we just all love wovens). Welcoming new people to join our live meetings is easy through the online group as that is where newcomers find their way easily and that is where we agree on the general babywearing meet-ups.

Dream big - nothing is impossible!

Wraps in a sling meet

You've got local/regional sling meets sorted? Then simply step to the national level! Our country (Finland) has had a general online babywearing discussion board with nowadays over 8000 members for quite some time already. Last autumn, a few wrap enthusiasts thought there might be use for a group focusing on wrap geeking beyond basic babywearing. Some nine months later, this "wrap geekery group" has over 400 members from all over the country and it has quickly evolved to an amazing peer forum and support group where you can chat about anything on earth, not just about wraps and babywearing. Members had also BST'd (buy-sell-trade interactions) a lot with each other but only a few had met in real life (unless they were from the same local babywearing group). So, after a lot of "it would be nice to" talk an initiative was set in motion to organize the first offline meeting for this online wrap geeking community. Although a host city was chosen, the organizing committee included active members from other parts of the country as well (myself included) to support the organization of the meeting.

This national level meeting was organized in a short time frame with a lot of voluntary work in finding and booking a venue, organizing meal orders, negotiating accommodation deals, getting sponsored give-aways and keeping people informed about travelling options. It was a five-hour event which over 60 wrap geekers joined, in most cases with their children and even spouses, meaning there were well over 100 people present! The furthest visitors traveled more than 450km to join the event! It was great and also for many important to meet each other and put faces and voices to the online profiles. Not to mention the unique chance to together geek over and try the hundreds of wraps and carriers present! Even I got to see, feel and try many wraps that I had previously only heard about and admired online at this meeting, including MoDream handwoven wrap and Woven Wings Autumn Stockinette to mention a few.

Trying out a short ruckless bikini carry with an amazing handwovenTainaK. #048 'Square This!' wrap in a sling meet

Why bother?

Why did I take the time to write about all this? Why is it so important to go offline and start meeting other babywearers in real life? I in no way underrate online babywearing communities since in today's world they often serve as the first-hand platform to get to know people no matter how close to each other you physically live. Online forums are often the easiest, fastest and probably least intimidating way to communicate and feel part of a community, share information and learn from each other. Online you get to choose your engagement level and decide whether you are a more anonymous and silent follower or an active and loud chatterer. Or you get to be anything in-between.

For sale board in a big sling meet

Still, I encourage you to try out whether offline babywearing friends could be something for you. Because they often become more than just babywearing buddies - instead of just sharing a hobby you can ideally become real friends and a support network to each other without you even purposely looking for one. As a good example, I got to know one of my local babywearing friends (more recently a friend in real life and beyond babywearing, too) in our first local sling meet and only afterwards we discovered we live on opposite sides of a small park! We now meet casually and chat with each other - a lot about wraps but also a lot about anything else. When our dog passed away and I was broken hearted about it, this amazing friend appeared at our door at 9pm to bring her precious Château Coco LBR for a holiday, together with two huge bars of chocolate and some goodies for our dear toddler, too! If that is not friendship with and beyond babywearing than what is? <3

I deeply appreciate all the new friendships these online babywearing communities have brought to me. I have gotten to meet a lot of babywearers in real life that I had previously only interacted with online and in every case the impression I had gotten of them online has only been confirmed once we met - every single person is extremely nice, fun and a pleasure to know! I consider us babywearers lucky as we have a kind of extended family which allows us to find support and company wherever we are (also because us babywearers often share a lot of the same parenting and life values) - recently I was invited over to a bw friend's house for a visit while we were enjoying a long weekend near their place; I met two babywearers briefly at a railway station while visiting the capital city, and I had a pit stop in the form of a sling meet on our way to countryside holiday on the other side of the country. The international babywearing groups have confirmed that the uniting spirit of babywearing works on a larger scale as well and there is always a helping hand to give tips or even meet you in person, no matter where in the world you will be travelling.

For inspiration, we have a lot of photos from our babywearing community available online under #liinakuume.

So, what is the story of your babywearing network? How did it get started? When did you join? Do you have regular meet-ups?
And if you don't (yet) have a babywearing network, what is your dream? And what is stopping you from pursuing it?

Paradisaea Handwoven: The Love That Casts Out Fear (Falling Back Into Life)

Lucky us! Soon after the departure of Staffasharu (see my previous blog post) we got to welcome another Paradisaea Handwoven tester and also meet lovely Kaisa Vanhala, the weaver behind these gorgeous wraps, while picking up the new beauty <3 The Love That Casts Out Fear is a #013 Paradisaea Handwoven and a sister wrap of our previous tester, Staffasharu. They are both from the Falling Back Into Life cotton warp with a bit of glitter. The story behind the warp is available here.

 The Love That Casts Out Fear is a generous size 3 wrap with blunt ends, measuring approximately 3,4m in length and 73cm in width. It has a tencel weft and is thus better washed by hand. The wrap can also be ironed gently, if needed. The density of The Love That Casts Out Fear is around 369 gsm, making it a heavy weight wrap. It is woven with the beautiful two-sided twill and plain weave combination - a larger size version of "The Pearls" which I got fond of with Staffasharu already. Despite the weight The Love That Casts Out Fear did not in any way come across as particularly heavy whether held in hand or worn in a carry - instead, the wrap felt airy and cloud-like to me. The black weft beautifully brings the warp colors alive.

Our testing week happened to be very warm with some +25C or more. We wore The Love That Casts Out Fear in carries such as ruck tied at shoulder, poppin's hip carry and shepherd's carry with our 12,5kg toddler and, even if tencel is a lovely cooling and regulating material, due to the density of the wrap it kept us pretty warm especially in multi-layer carries. The Love That Casts Out Fear is soft and drapes beautifully but tencel makes it glidy, these features together demanding a careful wrap job. Consequently, in my experience this was not a very forgiving wrap what it comes to wrapping qualities; our wrappee managed to pop the seat sooner or later most of the times in back carries. When we had the patience and time to tie the wrap carefully it was sturdy and comfortable on shoulders, though.

We have tested tencel in a few other handwoven wraps before both with tencel and merinolux (merino-tencel) wefts, the latest being Verdigris shorty by Rosbacka which also had a tencel weft (my review is available here). Due to its density my experience with The Love That Casts Out Fear was quite different from that with Verdigris which had a much lower gsm. I felt The Love That Casts Out Fear definitely worked better in multi-layer carries than in simple ones with a toddler and it would probably be suitable in a longer size when the temperatures are less high. I am looking forward to hearing the reports from other testers on how they experienced this beautiful wrap.

Again, like with Staffasharu, the overall appearance of The Love That Casts Out Fear is stunning and it made my local fellow babywearers fall in love with handwoven wraps and Paradisaea when I had this wrap with me in a sling meet. I am a fan of Kaisa's eye for colors and the floating selvedges as well as the logo tag and the instructions label all contribute to the aesthetic experience of Paradisaea Handwoven.

I think it is evident for everyone by now that Paradisaea's wraps are not "just wraps" but pieces of art that each carry an important meaning with them. The story behind The Love That Casts Out Fear is about the existence of fear and, more importantly, about the importance of overcoming fear through acknowledging how much it for no reason dictates our lives and choices we make. I had my heart beat faster as I read about Kaisa's experiences behind this wrap and the whole story really spoke to me, making me think of my own life and choices, too. Read the full story of The Love That Casts Out Fear here and learn why the weft Kaisa chose is black.

More photos of The Love That Casts Out Fear are available on my Instagram account. My tester review about Paradisaea's Staffasharu is available here. Please also stop by at Paradisaea Handwoven business page and join the Paradisaea's Stories group to learn more about these thoroughly-thought-of wraps and stories behind them. Thank you to Kaisa for yet another wonderful and all-encompassing tester experience! <3