No Two Tencel are Quite Alike

So we know that two wraps can be 100% cotton, but in our hands those two wraps can feel completely different. And we know that 100% cotton wraps can have completely different wrap qualities. Sometimes those differences are due to the thickness of the threads, which can affect the weight of the wrap. Sometimes those differences are do to the weave, giving the wrap a stretch or a texture that affects wrap qualities. And sometimes those differences are due to the cotton fiber being used.

Tencel® is no different. But, if you're anything like me, you tried Tencel®, found it to be one way, and asserted that all Tencel® is that one thing. Forgetting that the many factors  that cause cotton to behave differently could cause Tencel® to behave differently as well.

My first experience with Tencel® was a Tula Lexington Boulder ring sling. I fell in love with how soft it was before even being washed. It held my tiny 5 month old tight against me. It molded around his body like a receiving blanket. It was wonderful! In my hands, Lexington Boulder had a slight texture that helps it grip the rings. It glided through the rings, but not so fast that it became slippery.

And then my baby grew. He gained height and weight and at around 20 pounds, the Tencel® started to sag under his bottom, causing the material to slip in the rings. I was constantly tugging at the sling to get it back into place.

Here's my tiny baby boy in our Tula Lexington Boulder ring sling. The cuddles were amazing!

And, if that wasn't enough frustration with Tencel®, I also had a Tekhni Adelphi Mist size 3 wrap that began sagging under my son's weight in every carry. No matter how much I tightened the rails, my son's bottom would sag deep into the seat, putting pressure on my shoulders and causing the carry to be very uncomfortable. Frankie was about 15lbs when I bought and sold the wrap.

I took very few pictures of this beautiful wrap. Here's a pic using it as a prop for Frankie's 9 month pictures.

I absolutely loved both the Tula and the Tekhni Tencel® wraps! They are extremely soft wraps and they are beautiful! They are also well made. I would recommend both wraps to a new mother wanting something soft to carry her baby in. I would suggest, though, that the Tekhni Adephi Mist be purchased in a larger size that allowed for carries with multiple passes to help reinforce the wrap. I think that would have helped. But at the time I knew very few back carries and I couldn't do much more than a ruck with a size 3 wrap.

I made the tough decision to sell both the Tekhni Adelphi wrap and the Tula Lexington ring sling.

And I swore off Tencel® for my growing baby.

Then, I met Bijou Wear and was sent a TENCEL® Blast Firecracker to test. I also played around with the Tencel® Windmills Lake Tahoe a friend of mine purchased.

I have already reviewed Firecracker and, as you know from that post, I loved it so much I kept it. Here's another shot of Blast Firecracker highlighting just how beautiful this wrap is!

Since my last post about Bijou Wear wraps, I have put Firecracker to the test! Just tonight I put my 40 pound, 5 1/2 year old up in Firecracker and walked around for a bit. I was so surprised at how easily I could wrap her and how well it held her! She did not sag and the wrap did not dig into my shoulders.

The passes on Bijou Wear's Blast Firecracker Tencel® stretch nicely over the baby/child and then stay in place. It is easy to tighten the passes - that is, I'm not fighting the wrap and sweating just to tighten my passes! The fabric is not perfectly smooth, but also not overly textured. The wrap creates a nice tight knot of medium thickness. 

I also had the opportunity to try Bijou's Windmills Lake Tahoe. Another Tencel® wrap with amazing wrap qualities. I spent a couple of hours with Windmills Lake Tahoe last Sunday. My first impression of Lake Tahoe was how it felt a little more solid and dense than Firecracker. This is likely due to the fact that Lake Tahoe has larger areas of solid color and fewer shapes in it than Firecracker.

Here's Windmills Lake Tahoe. You can see both the "right" and "wrong" sides to the wrap here.

Windmills Lake Tahoe has almost the same wrap qualities as Blast Firecracker. Both feel soft, mold around the baby's body, glide into place, tighten easily, and knot neatly. Windmills seems to need a little more breaking in and a tiny bit more muscle to tighten than Blast. Both wraps look beautiful and flawless on.

Both wraps are strong, which surprised me considering my past experiences with Tencel®. What makes Bijou's Tencel® wraps stronger than other wraps, I believe, is the way the wrap is woven with large geometric figures that help contain the natural stretch you find in Tencel®. That is, the wraps don't stretch continuously from one corner to another. They stretch just within the shapes and so they hold stronger. Blast stretches diagonally across the squares in an X shape. Windmills stretches around the entire circle of the windmill in every direction, but has little to no stretch in the solid areas.

BUT, I must caution that not all Bijou Tencel® is equal. And that's not at all a bad thing - the variation allows for each wrap to have it's own character. All the Tencel® Bijou uses is lovely, but it's not the same. Bijou Blast LP (the black and white Blast below) is woven with a silkier and smoother Tencel® fiber (the colored fibers are the Tencel®). I have only felt a piece of LP wrap scrap and it was so wonderful! I wonder how the silkier texture will affect the wrap qualities. I can only imagine that the passes will glide even more smoothly.

Also, the cotton used in Bijou wraps feels different than the cotton I felt in other Tencel® wraps. I would say that it is a firmer cotton fiber (in both Blast Firecracker and Windmills).

The moral of this story is simple: not all like fibers are equitable. Many factors determine the wrap qualities of a particular wrap. It's important to do your research, ask questions, and figure out what works best for you. Right now, Bijou Wear Tencel® is working for me!

Meet Bijou Wear and Blast Firecracker

 Meet Bijou Wear.

Bijou Wear is a start-up wrap company in the United States. This company is the brainchild of Jaime Gassmann, who calls herself a "fabric mixmaster." I have had the pleasure of getting to know Jaime over the last month as I anticipated the release of her first two wraps: Windmills Lake Tahoe and Blast Firecracker.

Jaime started a chatter group on Facebook to spread the word about her company and her wraps. Her enthusiasm for and love of babywearing comes through in every one of her posts. She takes an active role in the growing Bijou community by responding to every thread. She also posts plenty of pictures on Instagram.

Recently, I asked Jamie about her inspiration for starting a wrap company and her inspiration for the wraps she creates. She said,

Coming from a family of entrepreneurs, it's always been clear I would work for myself. But before now I hadn't found that sweet spot where a passion and a business plan intersected. Parenting in ways that connect caregivers and children in naturally close ways started as a personal philosophy that developed into a calling with my volunteer work supporting breastfeeding mothers. My love of babywearing grew out of that philosophy, as part and parcel of naturally close and loving caregiver-child relationships. So when I went on vacation and all my mental energy focused on babywearing, I knew that I had the drive to make this happen right now in my life. A year after my first son was born, I went back to grad school and finished my degree. And now my second son is one year old and I'm launching my business. It's important to me that they see their parents achieving goals and contributing to the world.

I got in to woven wraps by making my own. DIY is fun and a great creative outlet. Through that process I learned a great deal about fibers and dye. I became very interested in traditional dye stuffs and methods. Indigo is the holy grail of such things, and I have done my own indigo dye vat in which I tried out a variety of shibori techniques. The root of the Blast pattern is in a square flower that I think is shibori of some sort. I developed the design, thinking about maximizing different weave structures for texture and color variation, then passed it on to one of the designer/artists with whom I work, who made it into a work of art.

Jamie geeks out over fabric and babywearing. And her passion shows in the final product. I got the awesome opportunity to preview Blast Firecracker, which released Friday, June 19th.

Blast Firecracker is the Tencel® wrap that has changed my mind about Tencel®. I only knew Tencel® as a very soft fabric that sagged under the weight of my growing toddler. Jaime knew she could change my mind. 

Meet Blast Firecracker.

First of all, look at the color! This orange is a gorgeous burnt tangerine that looks amazing on all skin tones (and I know because I've wrapped many moms in this wrap this past week!).

Second, look at that pattern! The pattern is inspired by the shibori technique of tie-dying. It is a series of different sized circles within squares that look different depending on how which carry you are doing. (The following picture hints at a colorway that is coming out soon!).

Now, the wrap qualities of this beauty are amazing. The fabric is a Tencel®/cotton fiber blend. Tencel® is a sustainable fiber that is made from wood pulp and is chemically identical to bamboo.
Tencel® is known for being very soft and moldable.

This wrap is indeed soft and moldable. It is extremely "floppy" after a single wash. One property of
Tencel® that I must warn about is that Tencel® has a tendency to filibrate, which means it becomes a little "peachy" after the initial wash. I have had the wrap for a week now and I have worn it daily and have carried it around with me and it had not become any more peachy than it was on the first day I received it. In fact, I barely even notice. 

The fabric feels soft to the touch with a little bit of texture. Texture is good because it helps hold a wrap in place and creates a nice knot. 

This wrap has a slight texture, but is also smooth so the passes glide into place very easily. Last week my son had his first tantrum and I threw him up on my back because he was refusing to calm down. I was able to get the seat made and the passes in place in a double hammock quickly with very little effort. My son calmed and sank into the wrap calmly.

Speaking of double hammock, this wrap rocks carries with diagonal passes like a Double Hammock, Shepard's Carry, HJBC, or FWCC because of it's diagonal stretch. The wrap is made up of a number of squares and the wrap stretches in an X (crisscross) across each of the squares.

The stretch also allows the wrap to hug your shoulder in any carry, which means the wrap is the absolute opposite of "diggy." Once in place, this wrap feels as soft and comfy as your favorite t-shirt.

This wrap has completely changed my mind about Tencel®. I used to think Tencel® was only a "squish worthy" wrap that held babies up to 20 lbs and was no longer good for my growing toddler. I sold off the Tencel® I used to own. But then I met Bijou Tencel®, which holds my 20 lb toddler with no issue and will continue to hold him for a long time. This wrap is permastash. 

That's not to say it's not "squish worthy," though. I have had the pleasure of wrapping two squishes this week in Blast Firecracker and both moms raved over how softness of the fabric.

I think we will see great things from Jaime Gassman and Bijou. I am so happy to be able to own one of the first Bijou wraps and to have tried both of last week's releases. Stay tuned for a comparison of Windmills Lake Tahoe and Blast Firecracker in a couple of days.

A Ring What?

Ring slings can be a mystery to many. What makes a ring sling comfortable? Why are there so many fabrics to choose from? What is the difference between a ring sling and a wrap conversion ring sling? What do people mean by squish-worthy and toddler-worthy?

Well, let me help clear up some of that mystery!!

General Information about Ring Slings

Ring slings are generally constructed with a sturdy woven fabric made of cotton, linen, silk, bamboo, hemp, and other fibers, as well as blends of fibers. Sometimes the fabric is woven just to be a ring sling and sometimes it is woven for a wrap and converted to a ring sling (called a wrap conversion ring sling or WCRS).

The fabric is sewn to two smooth metal rings on one end. The fabric is pulled through the rings in order to make a pocket for the baby to sit in. (Note: rings are sometimes made of nylon, but aluminum is preferred).

The "size" of a ring sling refers to the length of the ring sling (usually in inches). Only two things matter when choosing the length of the ring sling: 1) will it fit around you with at least a small tail and 2) how long do you want the tail to be? Generally, if you order based on your shirt size, it is said that the tail will typically reach your mid-thigh. Of course, this will vary slightly with the size of your baby or toddler. 


This chart should help you in choosing a length.

Size Chart

Size	Length in Inches
XS	65
S	70
M	75
L	80
XL	85
XXL	90

Another thing to consider in a ring sling is the "shoulder." Ring slings can have many types of shoulders. The most common are padded, pleated, hybrid, and gathered. The shoulder really is a personal preference. Many find that a shoulder that spreads out across your shoulder is most comfortable. This would be a hybrid or gathered shoulder. 

Yet another consideration with shoulder might be whether the ring sling is made for a right or left shoulder. This really is only important if the ring sling has a pattern that has an up and a down side.

My Ring Slings

I have owned four ring slings and have borrowed many more. My first ring sling was a 100% linen ring sling with a pleated shoulder made by LilPeeperKeepers, an Etsy shop. It was beautifully made with excellent craftmanship. But it never got soft enough for me and I found both the linen fabric and the pleated shoulder to dig into my very narrow shoulders.

Want a laugh? Here is me in 2010 carrying my daughter forward facing in my linen ring sling (this is not recommended...we all start somewhere and make some mistakes!)

I sold my linen ring sling as soon as my son was born and purchased a Tencel blend Tula ring sling with a gathered shoulder. This ring sling was purchased from Tula and is made from a Lexington Boulder Tula wrap. It was soft immediately out of the package and glided through the rings. Recently, though, I found that Tencel sagged under the weight of my almost 20 lb son. I find that the Tencel blends I have tried thus far are good for newborns and small baby's only. That is, they are "squish-worthy." This ring sling will leave us very soon.

Here's me wearing my teeny baby in the Tula ring sling. Ahhh...I can't believe he is almost one now!

On a whim last February, I purchased another ring sling. A 25% silk/75% Oscha Starry Night Nebula ring sling with a gathered shoulder. This ring sling was converted by Oscha from one of their wraps. Oh, it is beautiful! It broke in very quickly and is extremely soft. This particular ring sling is beginning to sag under the weight of my growing baby. I feel it too is best for a smaller baby (i.e. quishy-worthy). And so it will leave us soon as well.

Gah! This is a lovely ring sling to wear when all dressed up!

The fourth ring sling I own is permastash. I had a size 6 Natibaby My Yellow Umbrella wrap that I sent to Zaneytoes to have converted into two ring slings with gathered shoulders - I own one and a friend now owns one. This is a very strong 100% cotton that has a good amount of grip, but not too much. So far, I have not had the feeling that my son is sagging. It took a little work to break in, but it is now soft and very comfortable. I would consider this ring sling toddler-worthy.

My friend Cara Davies snapped this shot for me.

Because I have had issues with sagging ring slings, a friend of mine loaned me her ring sling converted from a Danu Freddie wrap. This ring sling also was converted by Zaneytoes. Danu is known for using very stiff and strong Irish linen in their wraps. The wraps take a lot of work to break in, but are "work horse" wraps that will not sag under any weight. So far, I am finding this ring sling to hold my baby tight and he seems to enjoy being carried in it for short amounts of time. This is very much a toddler-worthy ring sling!

Our lovely visiting ring sling.

Honestly, I don't think ring slings are for us except for quick ups in order to take the garbage out or run a quick errand to the grocery store. Even then, I'm beginning to prefer quick back carries and I think my son prefers being on my back as well. I will keep my Natibaby for rainy days when wrapping would mean getting the tails of my wraps dirty.

A friend of my recently said that ring slings are great for newborns/infants and bigger toddlers, but they tend to be not as practical for babies between 1-2 years of age. Maybe when my baby is two we'll start using a ring sling regularly again.

Our Legacy Wrap

Our Legacy Wrap

June 3, 2014 was my estimated due date for Baby Frankie. At the end of February, in my 27th week of pregnancy, my little soccer player decided to kick my cervix so hard and so often that it shortened to a dangerously low 1.7 cm. (The cervix holds the baby inside the uterus and should measure at least 3 cm).

A measurement of 1.7 cm was alarming and I was sent to the hospital immediately to spend time on monitored bed rest. I took my Little Frog Alexandrite size 6 wrap with me and held it tight every day praying that my baby would make it to 28 weeks, then 29 weeks. And we did, we made it.

I was then sent home and continued bed rest at home. 30 weeks. 31 weeks. 32 weeks. I held my Little Frog wrap, slept with it, braided it, unbraided it, wrapped my belly, unwrapped my belly.

Why this wrap? Well, alexandrite is the birthstone for June, my son's estimated birth month. And, at the time, Little Frog wraps met my budget. So, this beautiful Little Frog wrap became our legacy wrap, a permastash wrap with special meaning.

As I held this wrap tight, I constantly asked myself, how could my Little Frog wrap continue to be our legacy wrap if Baby Frankie was born before June? I prayed. I hoped. I loved.

I went home on St. Patrick's Day 2014 because my cervix lengthened to over 2 cm. I continued bed rest at home.

March turned to April. April turned to May. And that wrap and I made it to 36 weeks of pregnancy. I was allowed off bed rest and I was able to get my maternity pictures done.

May turned to June. Frankie's estimated due date, June 3rd, came. And went.

Ten days later after the estimated due date, under the full moon, I gave birth to Francis Neil, all 9 lbs 3 ozs of him. A short while later, we had our first professional babywearing picture taken.

In ten short days, my baby boy will be a year old. One year of babywearing. How time flies.

Little Frog Alexandrite size 6 continues to be a part of our babywearing permastash and will always be Frankie's legacy wrap.


ABOUT THE WRAP

Little Frog wraps are machine woven wraps made in Poland. They are considered budget wraps as they have a low price point, usually costing less than $100 USD. A number of US retailers sell Little Frog wraps. The wraps can also be ordered directly from the Little Frog website.

MY REVIEW

Little Frog Alexandrite
Size 6
100% Cotton

This wrap arrives a little stiff and softens some upon washing. It takes a little work to break in, but does become floppy. The seams continue to feel tight after the rest of the wrap breaks in.

Passes glide easily in this wrap and the stripes guide a new wrapper when tightening carries.

The wrap can feel "diggy" unless the passes are evenly distributed across the back, shoulders, and baby. If you take time to carefully wrap the baby evenly, the carry will be comfortable.

I now use this wrap for FWCC when we are at home. This is not a wrap I do elaborate back carries with nor is it one I generally wear out anymore. I would consider it our beater wrap that gets little use these days, but because it got us through my pregnancy, it will never leave.