Make Your Own "Moby" Baby Wrap!!

Make Your Own "Moby"-Style Baby Wrap

Someone asked me recently if I was pregnant or if we were trying because of all the things I was posting on Pinterest about kids. I wrote back that not either yet but I just like to be prepared!! We will someday, and there are sooo many great ideas I can't just let go by without pinning them for reference in the future :) We will have kids eventually. AND so many friends have kids... These are great ideas to share! One dear friend is pregnant with her first right now and I went on looking for ideas for gifts for her.
I know a baby wrap is just her style. When I read you can make TWO out of the length of material you buy I thought - Wow, worth the investment - I can put one in a box for myself later too.
I want to get things done ahead of time so I'm not scrambling once i find out I'm pregnant with all the things to prepare in just 9 months! Why not get some things crossed off now??

CHOOSING THE MATERIAL:
So, the first thing I learned about making my own "Moby" baby wrap is I needed a large, stretchy T-shirt type piece of material. I read later more about the right choice. You should get one that is breathable because it can get hot - its alot of material!! Also, if it's too stretchy - even the Moby brand over time will stretch out and not work as well. The reason you get T-shirt type material is so it's stretchy, and also so you dont need to sew anything!! The edges will curl and not fray. :)
FYI - What I bought i later learned was NOT good, it should be only 1-way stretch so your baby doesn't bounce around so much. AND so it wont shrink :P

The second thing I learned is, once hitting Fabricville, is that the many materials I want to make baby things with are VERY expensive!! But so is a "Moby" baby wrap, so I proceeded... I picked the material and bought 5 yards, there was a stain near the end so they gave me a little extra (alot I found when I got home and measured!)

AT FIRST The instructions looked so simple:

Buy 5 yards which comes about 50-60" wide and cut in half lengthwise to get 25-30" wide.
(There is more cutting than that to get it right... This comes later)

The reason to go up to 30" wide when Moby is actually 22" is so hold a larger baby-toddler later on. It's hard to carry your child as they continue to grow with skinny material. Good for newborns, but you want to get the most out of this investment of you time and money :)

I went ahead and cut my material in half lengthwise to get my two wraps. I considered washing it to see if the stain would come out but I guess I was rushing in the excitement!

Once I did this and tied it the "Moby" way I realized it was way too long (for me). If you discover this, dont cut yet!! Read on! I looked again online and saw that 5 yards was 4.572m or 180cm. Also, someone sharing the "Moby" brand dementions said hers was 16ft = 192cm = 4.8768m

Unfortunately, I stopped my research here and cut one to each of those lengths to try it out.

Later, I read Here:

5 yards if you're a size 12 or under

6 yards if you're a size 12-20

7 yards if you're over size 20

If one of yours is for a gift, you need to consider these things!!

However, my material was now the smallest version, AND guess what I learned next?? :(

THE MATERIAL SHRINKS WHEN YOU WASH AND DRY IT THE FIRST TIME!!

NOTE: DO THIS BEFORE ANY CUTTING!!

So, Now I was stuck with my two wraps which were too short.

Fortunately, I had seen on Pinterest this link to Un-shrink your clothes !

Working on that.

It worked! :)

They turned out so cute! But so much material to tie in front or behind me...

TIPS TO MAKE IT PERFECT (just a little more cutting)

First tip is to have some way to quickly find the mid-point of the material with a mark or a stitch - I bought cute little iron-ons. I figure a mark or stitch wouldn't be as easy to find...

Another great tip is to TAPER THE ENDS - Chalk lines worked great :):) 

The dementions for this I found Here:

Moby, is 21-22" inches wide at widest and 4" at the very narrowest end.

Folded in half, it is at full width for 70-74" before tapering down to 4" wide

(so 140-144" of the widest part when unfolded). 

You can see approximately what the tapering should look like Here. But basically simillar to the shape of my ironing board... :)

Add on:

So now I have my own baby girl and ended up buying a real moby used for really cheap. I like my homeade one much better because it is more stretchy. The moby measures 16ft 5" which is about 5m. Mine was about the same but with stretchier material so it works much better to hold baby. Much more comfortable for me and her.

Here you can see the difference in how my homemade one is tapered vs the brown moby... but I'm not going to edit mine, I like how it works and don't feel the need to change it. You can see that I left mine kinda squared on the end but you don't notice that when it's in use.

Hope this info is helpful :)