Linuschka Hamburg: Tester with japanese silk, seacell, supima and bio cotton

We were invited to participate in a test round for a yet unreleased beauty by Linuschka Hamburg. The tester was a size 6 wrap with an exciting blend of 40% bio cotton, 30% Japanese silk, 15% seacell and 15% supima. I was looking forward to the week with this wrap a lot since I had not had a chance to test Japanese silk yet but had big hopes it would not fail with a toddler. We were about to go for a countryside holiday involving no strollers and 8 + 7 hour train trips with multiple transfers so I knew we'd get to wear the tester a lot.

As we collected and opened the tester parcel, I was surprised by how the folded package was much thinner than I expected. However, a closer look to the wrap revealed already the lovely fluff and nubby towel-like texture it had. The tester is clearly a member of Linuschka's Avant-garde wrap family with its geometrical and abstract pattern and reminds to some extent Unovis Acapulco which was released just a few weeks before this tester arrived at our place. In the tester, white/ecru and pink colors are rather light when looking from further but more intensive from closer and also in stronger light. Overall, the first impression reminded me a lot of Artipoppe's Pink Towel especially from the appearance and touch, even though the blends of the two wraps are totally different.

Our wrappee is 18 months old toddler with good 12,5kg. We wore the tester mainly in double hammock tied under bum (with freshwater finish), simple rucksack, and front wrap cross carry tied under bum. Normally I hate tub finishes and avoid them wherever possible because I feel they easily pop back and the wrap job needs to be re-done. Thanks to the grippiness and texture of the tester, this wrap however held our toddler wonderfully even with just a simple knot under bum.

Fwcc tub with reverse side of the wrap out.

The wrap has a nice bounce which together with the grip makes the wearing a comfortable experience for both the babywearer and the wrappee, and our toddler enjoyed several wrapnaps while being carried in the tester. Against my expectations the wrap was easy to work with and it was not at all difficult to get the second layer of fabric on its place in double hammock. The wrap also basically pleated itself on shoulders!

When receiving the wrap after it had been to a couple of hosts already I thought it was pretty nicely broken in already. Still, it definitely got softer and floppier in the use and the surface felt less rough after our testing week. As our wrappee is in the on/off age, I also got to wear the size 6 tester on neck. Despite the no wool content it has something wool-like to it and served as a warming accessory during the sunny yet chilly day. The color of the wrap is subtle and not too strong and even my husband complimented it. Another plus in this wrap is certainly that, despite the exclusive blend, it did not feel too glamorous and you would not be afraid to wear it outdoors.

This wrap is definitely a toddler or heavier baby wrap for slightly more experienced users in my opinion because of the heavy weight and structure. I think it would be too much texture for small babies and beginners but works wonderfully when you know what to expect from grippy yet mouldable wraps.

Thank you for the opportunity to test this wrap! I have more action shots on my Instagram account and further photos and reviews by the hosts are available in the Linuschka wraps group. For more Linuschka beauties, please check their business page!

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

Paradisaea Handwoven: Staffasharu (Falling Back Into Life)

We were hugely excited to be chosen as a tester for Paradisaea Handwoven's #010, Staffasharu. Paradisaea Handwoven started as a side project of Kaisa Vanhala, a Finnish mother of two, babywearer, theologian and (free) writer. Paradisaea made an amazing entry into handwoven wrap lovers' knowledge by placing 2nd in the Spring 2016 Great Competition of Weavers in the Under 7 shafts category with the beautiful Foreglow wrap. What is unique in Kaisa's wraps is that they all have a story to tell - not just metaphorically but literally, each wrap and warp have their story which are beautifully documented at Paradisaea's website.

Staffasharu is 10th Paradisaea wrap and first from the Falling Back Into Life warp. Kaisa has woven this wrap to stay in the family and the story behind it is about love and personal experiences among loved ones as an answer to what you need the most in life to feel alive. The wrap has been named according to a small island that Kaisa and her sailor husband have come to think of as their own secret place. Considering all this and the whole wrap so purely and unconditionally revealing personal experiences and feelings of the weaver, I felt even more humbled to get to host this piece of treasure during the warm midsummer days.

Staffasharu is an Egyptian cotton wrap with a tiny bit of glitter. It is woven with a beautiful and eye-catching two-sided twill and plainweave combination called "The Pearls". The wrap is a generous size 4, measuring approximately 4.16m with blunt ends. The Falling Back Into Life warp has amazing colors inspired by a seaside landscape and sunset (photo available here) and copper and fuchsia colors are used as wefts in Staffasharu. They result in a truly eye-pleasing mixture of colors - a signature feature to Paradisaea's wraps in general.

Staffasharu is about 312gsm but I found it in no way thick (probably due to us having worked a lot with +/-400gsm wraps). The wrap came to us after two testers so it was nice and soft already and wrapping with it was a pleasure. The weave is denser than the average, 9 threads per cm in the warp, which I found positive - there were no pulls in the wrap and also the glitter thread had blended in seamlessly already. Still the wrap felt airy and the density was not dominant. We used the wrap a lot with our 12+kg toddler and wore it at least in half jordan's back carry (both traditional and symmetrical), inside out coolest hip cross carry and half front wrap cross carry.

Even if these were all multi-layer carries I did not feel Staffasharu too hot even when we walked outdoors at warmer than +25C weather. The wrap felt soft on shoulders and was easy to work on its place. "The Pearls" weave brought a little grip to the touch. In the carries we tried Staffasharu was totally toddler worthy also when we carried for more than an hour on one go. The wrapjobs were effortless to finish as Staffasharu does not produce too big of a knot even if the ends are blunt. On the contrary, ring finishes were a bit challenging with Staffasharu for me as I personally found large sling rings were almost too big for this wrap.

Staffasharu has floating selvedges which I liked a lot as I am not a huge fan of plain weave selvedges. I prefer the type of rails that most fit in the wrap and here floating selvedges were definitely the right choice as they look neat and are a seamless continuation of the weave. Similarly, I found the label solution of Paradisaea Handwoven near the best of what I have seen in any wraps so far. All the necessary information is there beautifully handwritten and the tags are discretely sewn on the wrap so that they are not simply hanging on the way. Consequently, Paradisaea tags contribute to the aesthetic experience and do not disturb the eye like in many other wraps.

All in all, Staffasharu is in my opinion a true piece of art where everything from the overall look to the wrapping qualities and the story behind harmoniously merge together. More photos of our testing days are available on my Instagram account. To admire Staffasharu's sister wraps and Kaisa's other handwoven creations please visit Paradisaea Handwoven business page and the Paradisaea's Stories group. Thank you for the opportunity to experience part of Paradisaea! ♡

Rosbacka Handmade: Domestic Summer Tour 2016

We were lucky to be part of the domestic Rosbacka Summer 2016 Tour and got to host three handwoven wraps at once. Rosbacka Handmade is a handwoven items business from Finland, founded by Sanna Kylänpää who is also the main weaver. Since recently, also Eevamari Ripatti is weaving under Rosbacka label and we got to test both Sanna's and Eevamari's creations during the tour. Even for a wrap lover like me those days are rare that you get a 3-in-1 fluffy mail box so this was certainly a special occasion :)

First of the tour wraps was from the legendary Thumbelina warp. I say legendary because Thumbelina was Sanna's entry piece to the Great Competition of Weavers in fall 2015 and for that Sanna according to her own words not just learnt crackle but also dyed her first warp and all the wefts. Glitter threads were used on the Thumbelina warp, too. The Thumbelina piece that travelled on the tour was called Fairy and it measured approximately 3,78m and 283,5gsm. The wrap had hand-dyed cottolin in pattern pics and thin 16/2 light pink EC in plain weave.

As the tour beginned with us, all the wraps were in unused condition. Especially in the case of Thumbelina Fairy this showed - the wrap felt really coarse, thin and, well, unused. It is always a bit ungrateful to get to wear a brand new linen blend and here I believe also the hand-dyed yarn added to the roughness of the touch of the wrap. I guess the wrap will soften a lot along the tour as the threads will smoothen and adjust. On the positive side, the grip of the wrap was lovely and once you managed to finish the wrap job you could be assured it stayed on its place. Despite the rather low gsm this is an ideal wrap for toddlerwearing thanks to the blend. The colors of Thumbelina Fairy were really beautiful and lively in different lights.

Second tour wrap was a 3,63m long merinolux wrap from Sanna's Late Nights & Hot Cider warp. It had merino-tencel weft and big hearts as weaving pattern. The warp, like Thumbelina, had glitter threads.

I have had a handwoven merinolux wrap from another weaver in past so I knew what to expect. I love the softness and warmth of a merino wrap and this Late Nights & Hot Cider piece was no exception. Tencel made it glide and the wrap was thus not really grippy, making it difficult to keep the wrap job in place in a front wrap cross carry tied under bum with 12+kg toddler. While wearing, the wrap felt very cushy on the shoulders though and it was definitely not diggy.

Third tour wrap was from Eevamari's Verdigris warp. This wrap was an approximately 2,97m and 254gsm shorty with flower weaving pattern and light plum tencel weft. Wow!

Normally I would run away and fast if anyone offered me a shorty with this gsm. Verdigris was a fantastic exception, surprising me positively. The wrap felt soft, cool and a bit glidy but wrapping with it was easy. I loved how smoothly a ruck tied at shoulder was done with this wrap - we did not wear it for long to find out how it would have felt after a while but at least for quick-ups this wrap was lovely with a toddler. This shorty also did not take much space when folded so one could easily fit it in a hand bag.

I have had two semi-customs from Sanna in past so we had experience of Rosbacka Handmade wraps already. Both my wraps had been all-cotton and quite thin to my taste so I was positively surprised on the texture that all the tour wraps offered in their own ways. As with my old semi-customs, these testers also had quite a number of small pulls, partly because of the glitter threads. I assume they might settle upon more wearing and I did not try fixing them. Another minus for me are the new tags of Rosbacka wraps. They are rather long and even if folded under the Rosbacka label the tag opens up really easily which is not a very aesthetic sight on the tail of the wrap.

Having three tester wraps at once for just one week is surely an ambitious task for a stay-at-home babywearer and that even more for someone who is working full-time out of home. On the other hand, having just one wrap to host and test for one full week can be a little tiring so here the three travelling wraps brought a nice change and variety to the testing days as you could always pick a wrap based on your mood and needs.

All the three tour wraps were ready-to-ship items. In case you got interested in any of them, please do not hesitate to check their availability at Rosbacka Handmade business page. Thank you to Sanna and Eevamari for the chance to test these beauties!

Wearababy: Vanamo Kide Neva

We were excited to have Vanamo Kide Neva woven wrap visit us two weeks ago. Vanamo is a woven wrap collection by Finnish Wearababy (Liinalapsi) and the wraps are designed and produced entirely in Finland. All Vanamo wraps are woven in a small weaving mill in Espoo, Southern Finland, and finished by hand by local seamstress. Until now my experience of Finnish baby wraps relied solely on the handwoven side where Finns are lucky to have numerous skilled artists. Therefore, my expectations for this machine woven wrap were also high.

Vanamo wraps are all made with natural materials of safe and high quality – in the case of Kide Neva this is soft GOTS certified organic cotton from a German spinning mill. Neva is a medium thick wrap, the density being approximately 262gsm pre-wash and 298gsm post-wash. This was ideal for us as a size 6 wrap, with our wrappee being close to 13kg. Kide Neva is machine washable like all Vanamo wraps and it can be ironed, too. We didn't need to do either of these as the wrap came to us after two other tester homes and was wonderfully soft already.

Kide Neva is a mixture of turquoise and black threads. The wrap almost shimmers and the surface is very lively, resulting in beautiful shades of green (some see it as blue) and I found the color flattering. The wrap felt somewhat thin, yet durable and with a lovely diagonal stretch which is a signature feature of Vanamo wraps. There was almost like something handwoven in the touch and look to me, maybe due to the weaving pattern which according to Wearababy is inspired by traditional Finnish woven textiles. The inspiration to Vanamo designs comes from Scandinavian nature and Finnish national tradition and myths more in general and, quite rightly, I felt there would hardly be a better place to test Kide Neva than our holiday to Finnish archipelago, islands and seaside.

We wore Kide Neva in multi-layer carries: front wrap cross carry and variations of double hammock. I found the wrap ridiculously smooth to work with as it glided easily on place even on top of wind-fleece and woolen clothes that can often a bit tricky to babywear with. Probably due to the texture created by the weaving pattern, the wrap-jobs also stayed extremely well on place without loosening even if we used the carries for 1.5-2.5 hours at a time. Each time our toddler napped in Kide Neva so it must have been lovely and comfortable not just to the wearer but for the wrappee, too! There was absolutely no aching on my shoulders or waist even if with many all-cotton wraps this is in my experience inevitable after more than 30 minutes or so carrying of heavier child. I did not test any single-layer carries with Neva though due to the length of the wrap and my personal preference to thicker wraps when carrying in single-layer with our toddler. We wore Neva during rather chilly and windy archipelago weather with occasional sun and felt the wrap gave a nice extra warming layer without being sweaty.

I am a bit ashamed to admit that, apart from touching a Vanamo Karpalo ring sling once without testing it, to date I had managed not to come across with any Vanamo wraps in real life even though they are to my knowledge the only machine woven Finnish baby wraps. Somehow my impression of them was still in the old Vanamo designs – multi-color striped patterns which made me classify them with Didymos, Storchenwiege, Ellaroo, Girasol and similar “hippy” style wraps that surely have their fans but are not something for me really. It was therefore wonderful to realise that with the introduction of Vanamo Kide series by Wearababy there is now also something machine woven made in Finland that appeals my eye aesthetically. Also from the wrapping qualities point of view this Vanamo wrap surpassed most if not all the similar price range wraps we've got to own or try. Kide wraps come in several colors and different blends so the only difficulty remains in deciding which one to go for - because I definitely want a Vanamo Kide of my own now!

Thank you to Wearababy for the opportunity to test this wrap and make me change my mind about Vanamo wraps! Thank you also to Babywearing diaries for smooth practical arrangements of the test round :)

TainaK. Wraps: Handwoven #037 and #042

Two handwoven TainaK. Wraps visited us in the beginning of June. TainaK., the weaver behind the wraps, is a Finnish industrial and graphic designer who has enjoyed babywearing so much that she started weaving wraps of her own. I have been lucky to follow Taina’s work for some time already but until now had experience of one of her wraps only. The more the merrier, #037 and #042 travelled together to visit us ♡

#037 is a size 2+ shorty from a beautiful cottolin (60% cotton & 40% linen) warp. The warp contains colors of green, orange, navy and bits of ecru, in my opinion perfectly embodying its name "Maisema lapsuudesta" which means "Landscape from Childhood". The weft used in this wrap is black cotton-cashmere and the weaving patterns applied are two versions of faux-crackle, designed by Taina with the support of another Finnish weaver, Raisa from Chunky Slings. The more dominant pattern looks like waves, creating a lively look to the surface of the wrap.

#042 is a size 3 wrap from a natty Haiku warp. I guess this was the first ever hexablend (a blend with six different materials!) handwoven I got to test, the warp containing 59% cotton, 22% natural bamboo, 14% hemp, 5% cashmere and less than 1% glitter PE/PA. It is noteworthy that the bamboo used in Haiku warp is natural bamboo aka bamboo linen from one of the best Italian mills and different from bamboo viscose. Bamboo linen is made through mechanical crushing of bamboo after which the bamboo parts are converted into a homogenous organic mass with the help of natural enzymes. The weft used in this wrap is mulberry silk-seacell in dark grey color and it is woven in a large-ish faux-crackle pattern, also designed by Taina with the support by Chunky Slings weaver Raisa like the weaving patterns used in #037.

With our toddler weighing close to 13kg and us favoring simple ruck carry, double hammock and front wrap cross carry with wraps sized 4<, we have been far from shorty fans until now. We however courageously took the effort to wear these two pretty wraps every day for over a week and I definitely also got more at ease with some useful shorty carries along the way! I used to dislike size 2 wraps quite a bit but the TainaK. Wraps made me change my mind and realise that my previous shorties were probably simply too thin for my taste - a team thick member as I am. #037 and #042 were totally toddler worthy in our use and amazingly similar aka wonderful in their wrapping qualities despite the very much different blends.

Both #037 and #042 were easy to wrap with, stayed nicely on place and felt heavenly on shoulders. #037 is about 290gsm while #042 is reaching to 350gsm, yet they both came across rather light and airy for me which was lovely. Through cashmere #037 was warmer and fluffier, yet very supportive even though linen was not at all dominant in the feeling. #042 had a bit more grip in the overall feeling without being sticky. Even if silk or seacell are often described as gliding, to me this feature was also not in any way dictating, probably thanks to the weaving pattern that brought texture to the wrap as well as the balancing cotton and hemp in the blend. Similarly, the natural bamboo didn't come across as slippy as the bamboo viscose I have experienced, which can be expected due to the difference in the processing method I assume.

I couldn’t really name any single material that would have stood out in #042 nor is there really any other wrap that I’ve tried to compare it to. I guess having a blend of six different materials merging together so seamlessly is something you simply need to experience yourself. To my surprise however, what it comes to wrapping qualities, #037 was not left behind at all with ”only” three different materials but felt equally luxurious in use. Both wraps were something I would recommend for toddlerwearing and probably they would suit bigger babies, too. The colors of the wraps are in my opinion classic and sophisticated, making you feel glamorous even on a forest walk.

Thank you to TainaK. for letting us host these wraps! I have more photos (mainly action shots) on my Instagram account. TainaK. Wrap Chatter is available in Facebook and Taina's future wraps are mainly released through draws there. Come and join the rest of us desperate ones in the chatter who look for a TainaK. Wrap of their own! :)