Sew Special: A Baby Wrap

This was a quick and easy project.  My SIL has several cloth baby wraps and let me try hers.  It is more comfy than the bjorn for my growing (read: heavy) boy and I think a bit more functional. So I decided to sew my own version of the cloth baby wrap.  Here we are testing it out:

homemade baby wrap test #1

 You are supposed to have a "spotter" as you practice using these wraps. Turns out that is a very important tip.  We were trying to learn how to do this by following videos on You Tube. We laughed a lot and got a bit frustrated too.  The phrase trying to do something "with two hands tied behind your back" comes to mind. You can see how uncertain baby S looks about these practice attempts. We eventually realised that it needs to be up a bit higher and cross over around baby's shoulders.  We will definitely need to keep practicing!

How-to make a baby wrap:  

1. Buy 5 yards of a sturdy woven fabric, not stretchy (that's a different kind of wrap).  I bought my fabric at ikea.  I have already mentioned before that I love the quality of their fabric, plus it's yarn dyed, so same on both sides.  And best of all - it is 60" wide, which means you can make TWO 30" wide wraps, one for you and one to give to a friend/sister/baby shower gift etc.  Apparently, they are normally 80-100$ each. I made 2 for about 42$.
2. Cut the fabric into two 5 yard long by 30" wide pieces.  Taper each end to a 60 degree angle, so that the whole piece is a parallelogram, something like this:
   
3. Finish the raw edges.  (aka geometry lesson) I found it easiest to fold over a half inch of fabric and sew a 1/4" seam, then fold over another 1/2 inch and edge stich along the fold.  I did the two shortest sides first (B-C and A-D) and then the long edges.  At the corners, I trimmed off the excess that the fold-over caused at C and A (making a straight edge from D-C and B-A again). Then I folded corners C and A toward the middle as I rolled in for the half inch seams along the long edges. ..  Sorry I should have taken more pics. If there is much interest I will do a step-by-step example next time that I make one. :)