All right, full credit for this idea goes to Missy of A Work in Progress, who suggested in an aside that I should use the scraps from my normal-size mei tai baby carrier to make a mini mei tai for little babywearing kids and their dolls.

So read on — a 41-step process to craft a no-sew (or minimal-sew: your choice) doll carrier mei tai out of fleece scraps. Skip a step at your peril.

(Editor's note: Slightly abridged version with pattern is at the end, as well as a chance to WIN YOUR OWN mini mei tai!)

Take your existing mei tai and drape it around your willing dressform to eyeball how much smaller your new version has to be.
Confirm that room is as messy as possible for the pictures.

Make sure he's holding two baby dolls to allow for tandem babywearing.

Sorta kinda measure your child and mark the results on your scrap fabric, using a precise scientific method.

Admit that perhaps pins might be more helpful, so mark the overall length you want.

Cut nowhere near your mark because you have an obsession to make everything too big.

Have your cat get in the way of your picture taking.

Decide to take a picture of her instead, but have trouble with the focus. Watermark the pictures so no one can deny the proof of your genius.

Ah, there we go.

Have your sick child get mad at you that he's not sitting on your lap as he has for the past four days straight.

Ask his father to please take the cranky guy on a walk.

Go back to taking pictures and find the cat's tail in the way.

Distract her with the box of pins.

Muse on the awesomeness of the name Prym Dritz.

Measure out the strap widths because you forget the trick of folding fabric in half. Every time you sew.

Mark how tall the apron part should be so you don't cut the straps too far.

With all your pins marked, get ready to cut.

Be interrupted by hysterical baby who won't leave for a walk until he has nummies first.

Have husband carry over the invalid.

Look into your child's look of reproach for not paying absolute attention to him.

Check out how long this sucker is.

Start those scissors, and appreciate how nice and sharp your new pair are.

Look up to see what's going on with ice skating.

Cut over across the top of the apron.

Witness it all cut out! Consider stopping here, because honestly — dolls aren't that heavy. You could just kind of wrap the shoulder straps around the doll's bum tightly enough to hold it in.

But realize people might think you're a slacker for not doing a proper mei tai. Resign yourself to sewing on a waist strap.

Cut the remaining scrap in half lengthwise.

Fold it in half and pin it onto the bottom of the apron, matching up centers.

Check out the underside view.

Congratulate yourself that you were able to find your sewing machine. Then note that the power cord is not with it. Sigh loudly.

Grudgingly bring down your hand-sewing box. Hope that thread and needles are inside the jumble.

Dark green? Sure, you can work with that.

And it's done! Pat yourself on the back and wait impatiently for your kid to get back from his walk with dad.

In the meantime, make sure the (naked, always) doll will fit. Yup.

Keep one eye on the Olympics.

Compare the size of the mini mei tai to the regular one. Yup, it's smaller.

They're back! Get help trying it on your son.

Admire how cute it is even from the back.

Coo over the sweet cuddliness of a babywearing baby.

Take the mini mei tai off because your two-year-old refuses to keep it on.

Oh, well, it was cute while it lasted. Give yourself an A for babywearing effort.

Here is the real tutorial:

You can click to see the pattern larger.

I've adapted the mini mei tai pattern from my regular mei tai pattern, which was in turn adapted from a pattern at www.WearYourBaby.com (but the links to that site don't appear to be currently working).

The idea is that this pattern should fit within the scraps you had left over from making the adult mei tai out of a heavy fleece fabric. If you look at the pattern for the large size version here, you'll see that three large pink areas are discards. There should be something in there that would give you enough fabric to create a mini mei tai for a baby doll.

Otherwise, just look for some other big fleece scraps you have around! Fleece is preferable because you don't have to hem it since it won't unravel. Yea! Plus, it will be plenty sturdy enough to hold a doll or two or three.

The measurements I used in the photographs above turned out to be a wee bit large. I've tried to adjust the finished size down for the pattern. That said, compare your own child's size. I have a 2-year-old who weighs 35-ish pounds and wears 4T, and his biggest doll is 14 inches long; if your child (or doll) is much smaller or much larger, you might want to do a specific waist and torso (and doll) measurement to see what would be best. Keep in mind that big dolls might be able to have their legs outside of the fabric apron as with carrying a larger baby in a real mei tai.

In this pattern, the apron covering the child's chest will be 12 inches wide and 14 inches tall. The straps will be about 45 inches long.

To use the pattern: fold fabric over into a big rectangle and mark and cut out, along the folded side, the smaller pink rectangle of approximately 3 inches by 45 inches. You'll probably have excess to cut off the other side and the top or bottom as well, unless you want an oversized mini mei tai like mine. I mean, hey, mine works, so whatever you want to do! You know, it's scraps anyway, so if you want to just sort of eyeball it, feel free.

And that's it, if you want to stick with not sewing. The leftover scraps weren't enough to do a legitimate no-sew mei tai with waist straps, but I think the shoulder straps alone should be sufficient to hold a doll's weight.

But, if you don't mind sewing a straight line or two, you can add a waist strap from the small pink rectangle you cut out.

Cut the leftover rectangle in half lengthwise and then line it up along the bottom of the apron, as in the pictures. (Those captions were serious.) I folded mine in half lengthwise and tucked the bottom of the apron inside so that the mei tai would be reversible and look the same from either side.

Then just sew the waist strap on! I imagine you could use some sort of hemming tape or glue if you really want a waist strap and really don't want to sew.

Does that all make sense?

Then you tie it on your child like a normal mei tai:

• If you have a waist strap, tie that on first.
• Have your kid hold her doll against her chest while you pull the apron up over the doll's back and smooth the shoulder straps over your child's shoulders.
• Cross the shoulder straps over her back.
• Bring the shoulder straps around front and tie. You can do a knot or a bow.
• If you don't have a waist strap, tie the shoulder straps under the doll's bum to keep it hoisted!

This should be ever so clear, but let me be explicit: This is a doll carrier. It is not meant for human babies. It is not designed to support an infant's weight, only a doll's. Supervise your kid if he's likely to try to wear his baby sister when you're not looking! Also just supervise your kid in general, because these are some long straps on this carrier that could be a hazard if your child becomes tangled. Keep an eye out when the carrier is in use, and put the carrier away when not in use. Ok?

So what do you think? Is this cute or what? Passing on babywearing to the next generation!

Send me your photos if you make one, and I will die from the adorableness. I also welcome any feedback or suggestions, because I am not, and I think there is no doubt here, advanced at doing sewing tutorials and/or sewing. Oh, and did I mention the pattern's not to scale? It so isn't.

For a chance to WIN YOUR OWN Mini Mei Tai, check out my giveaway post on Hobo Mama Reviews! Winner chooses from these four sweet fabrics. Contest closes March 18, which should give you lots of time to pick.

While you're there, check out my giveaways page, where you can currently also win a copy of Mama Knows Breast, a wonderful breastfeeding guide by Andi Silverman.

Just think what a great combo pack this would be for a new sibling gift: a mini mei tai for the older sib, and the breastfeeding book for the mama!

In fact, get an extra entry into the mini mei tai giveaway by entering the Mama Knows Breast giveaway! But hurry — the Mama Knows Breast giveaway ends this Thursday, Feb. 25!

I wrote the article "Forgoing vaginal examinations during labor" as part of Science & Sensibility's Healthy Birth Blog Carnival #4, and Amy has now posted all the carnival links here:

                         Healthy Birth Blog Carnival #4:
     Avoid interventions that are not medically necessary

Go take a look. There is a section of posts on the roles and pros and cons of interventions in labor (such as Pitocin, epidurals, episiotomies, artificial rupturing of membranes, etc.), of course including my own article on vaginal examinations, which has gotten a lot of good comments that have helped me (and I hope other readers) process that topic even further. Some of you wrote in to say you'd had a lot of cervical checks, some to say you'd had none. Some mused on the intrusiveness of having professional fingers inside the vagina, and I was glad some of you brought up the physical pain involved since I'd completely blocked that aspect of it. Toward the end of the thread, a labor and delivery nurse stopped by to comment on the pain issue, so check out the discussion.

Back at the Healthy Birth Blog Carnival, there's a second section that describes women's own experiences with interventions in labor, including the birth story of Amy's sister, who had a lovely home birth-turned-C-section, which was especially intriguing and beautiful to me.

Lastly, there's a section on changing the culture of birth, looking at how transparency and health care reform might affect the incidence of unnecessary interventions.

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Remember a couple other items as well:

• Today, Thursday, is the last day to enter to win one of the FIVE On-the-Go Inflatable Potty Seats up for grabs. Perfect for a little elimination-communication baby or your potty-learning toddler. It will keep your little one comfy on a public toilet, and then deflates to store easily in your bag till the next go-around.
• Did I mention we had a carnival around here? The February Carnival of Natural Parenting was a smashing affair, lots of love for co-parents as well as a couple stories of going it alone or starting over. Thanks so much to all our lovely contributors! Keep in mind that submissions to the March carnival on "Vintage green" are due Mar. 2. What sorts of "green" things did you do as a kid (even if you didn't know at the time they were eco-friendly) that you now do with your own kids? If the answer is that you did nothing green as a kid, feel free to share ways you are bucking that trend in your current family!
• If you want more blogging carnivals to enjoy, be sure to check out my current list of parenting carnival topics and due dates. I know I checked it today to make sure I'm on target! Looks like I've got one due tomorrow, so I'd better get started...

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I also have it on good faith that Sam is hard at work writing a guest post. Cool, no?

I can't wait to see in what ways he's going to out me.

If anyone else would like to guest post, just let me know. (And then don't be really offended and worried if I'm terribly slow at replying to your email. Procrastinating is my bag, baby.)

I realize that article requesting guest posts is old and all, but the gist is true even if the details are different. For instance, you could give yourself an extra entry into my Mama Knows Breast giveaway instead. Potato, potahto.

Don't worry — it's the kind of action you can do while sitting on a couch. My favorite!

First of all, there are quite a few parenting carnivals coming up you might want to contribute to and enjoy reading once they post. You can find a full list with these plus more at Melodie's "List of Carnivals for Crunchy Mamas" at Breastfeeding Moms Unite!

• The February Carnival of Breastfeeding is asking how you overcame a breastfeeding challenge. Email your post to the carnival hosts by Feb. 15 for the carnival on Feb. 22.
• There is a blog carnival schedule up at Attachment Parenting International. Submissions for posts on the topic of "Prepare for Pregnancy, Birth, and Parenting" are due Feb. 12 for the carnival on Feb. 19. Follow the instructions for posting on the API blog.
• The ninth Carnival of Feminist Parenting will be up next Sunday, Feb. 14, a delightful Valentine's present for you all. If you want to submit to the tenth carnival, get your links in by Mar. 10.
• The Green Moms Carnival is going live today on the topic of coal, hosted at Retro Housewife Goes Green. Next month's topic is environmental links to cancer, and if I understand correctly submissions are due Feb. 22 for the carnival on Mar. 1.
• The next Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism is slated for Feb. 25 on SpanglishBaby. Get your links in by Feb. 19.
• I'm not sure exactly when the Healthy Birth Blog Carnival at Science & Sensibility is going to post, but I believe it's very shortly, so check back at that link. (It's rather like an estimated due date, isn't it? You get a general idea of when to expect the delivery, but no one on the outside gets to decide for sure when all is ready.) My post for it was on limiting vaginal examinations during labor.
• And, ahem, tomorrow is the much-anticipated (I dare say so myself, since I'm not the only one doing the anticipating!) February Carnival of Natural Parenting on our experiences with co-parents, to be found right here and lots of other fine places, including my ever-fabulous co-host Code Name: Mama. It is going to rock, my friends. Check back. If you wanted to participate and missed it, submissions are due the first Tuesday of every month for a carnival on the second Tuesday. Full details and upcoming themes are at the Carnival of Natural Parenting page (I figured out how to do pages in Blogger — neato!). Next month's topic is Vintage Green, which sounds intriguing, does it not?

Secondly, I have two giveaways going on right now at Hobo Mama Reviews:

• My newest is of Mama Knows Breast, a breastfeeding book by Andi Silverman. Pop over to read my review of this essential nursing guide and enter to win your own copy. It's perfect for new mamas — whether that's you or a gift recipient who'd love to learn more about breastfeeding. Enter by Feb. 25.

• My giveaway for an On-the-Go Inflatable Potty Seat, a portable and comfy seat reducer, ends this Thursday, Feb. 11. All you have to do is comment with your color preference. There are FIVE winners being selected, so it's a great chance to be a WINNAH!

So much fun! How can you even stand it?

I was thinking about adding a dozen more links to interesting blog posts I've read recently, but sadly, I have to sleep at some point. So I'll just ask: Are you following me on Twitter? I often post links to more interesting articles than I can fit into my blog posting schedule. If you like hearing about natural-parenting tidbits from around the internet, plus any intrusive random thoughts I might have at any given moment, please do connect with me there. You can always ignore the random thoughts.

I am hosting my first honest-to-goodness review and giveaway from a real, live company (after my previous giveaway of a handmade treasure) over at Hobo Mama Reviews — the On-the-Go Inflatable Potty Seat. I am so excited to bring you a pottying tool that will be useful for the potty-learning toddlers out there as well as those parents doing elimination communication with their babies.

Click over to Hobo Mama Reviews to read the full review and enter the contest for one of FIVE inflatable potty seats being given away! I talk about the seat's features and show some delightful pictures of pottying in action, which is incentive enough, really.

Below is a little background on how I came to be doing a giveaway for On-the-Go Potty Seats, in case you're wondering what my connection is.

I've told you a little bit of our elimination communication (EC) journey with Mikko. We did part-time EC with cloth diapers for backup. Just before two years old, we said sayonara to the cloth diaper service and went with pottying full time.

(Side note: Spell check keeps trying to change that to "potting." No, spell check, this is not a gardening article. This is about poo-poos. Hmmm…spell check doesn't like that term, either...)

One of the challenges, though, of either (a) pottying (not potting) a young and therefore small baby or (b) taking a potty-learning toddler out and about is finding appropriate and appropriately sized places to potty.

Mikko is 2.5 years old, and even though he's very large for his age, adult toilets are still too cavernous for him to sit on. If we're at home, he'd rather use any of the following methods: (1) BabyBjörn Little Potty, (2) BabyBjörn Potty Chair, (3) a seat reducer for the adult toilet, or (4) standing up in the bathtub (hey, whatever works!).

Now, of these four methods, really only #1 and #3 are transportable. That is, only bringing a small potty with us or a seat reducer will work for when we're out in public and needs must be taken care of.

The problem with a potty is that, even if we bring a BBLP (emphasis on little), it's still plenty bulky. We have a travel, fold-up potty and seat-reducer (the Potette Plus), but problems with it are that it requires a waterproof bag and absorbent material (they sell disposable liner kits — some people use diapers or washcloths with a plastic grocery bag instead) to use it as a potty, we haven't had much luck getting Mikko to use it as a seat reducer, and it's still rather bulky and hard plastic. You can't, for instance, toss it in an average purse — you have to have a bag large enough to tuck it in, and then not mind if the knobbiness digs into you as you walk.

What does all of this have to do with the On-the-Go Inflatable Potty Seat?

Glad you asked!

I first came across this product on Twitter. I don't even remember how. Maybe from Lisa's guest post on elimination communication or my post on EC techniques used with potty learning for toddlers that got Tweeted and picked up; maybe I was searching related potty-training hashtags. Whatever the source, I was intrigued.

It's a blow-up toilet seat reducer. You manually (orally? mouthily?) inflate it, and then it fits snugly inside any adult-size toilet, whether public or private. There's a quick-release valve on the back for instant deflating, so that you can roll it up, tuck it into your bag, and go about your business, your child's business having been done (get it? "business"? potty humor).

I Tweeted a question: But what if your mouth touches where a public toilet has been? And the president, Michael McGuire, wrote back to assure me that the inflater valve is many inches away from any toilet-seat contact. Phew!

In a spirit of temerity, I wrote Mike directly and said: Hey, how about a giveaway?

And he said, Yes!

I asked for one to review and one to give away, but he's offering FIVE to give away. Yes, five readers get to win an On-the-Go Inflatable Potty Seat! Perfect for ECing infants and potty-training toddlers!

I hope you will like this seat as much as we do. It's a great addition to your potty arsenal for on-the-go pottying (hence, the name), and maybe because it's so cushy, this is now Mikko's favorite toileting option even at home. (Spell check just tried to change that to "toiling." I guess it is kinda hard sometimes...)

The contest ends Feb. 11. So, head on over to Hobo Mama Reviews to enter to WIN!