5Ws of apootaern

Who : I'm a WAHA (work-at-home-aunt) who is a craft addict & fabric hoarder. I love the idea of attachment parenting and hope to spread that babywearing is good for the baby + hip for mommy.

What : Currently apootaern carry a range of fashionable baby slings that is vibrant in color + uses luxurious and gorgeous fabric.

Coming soon, more handmade baby & mommy stuffs!

Where : We are based on the beautiful island of Penang, Malaysia with customers & fans from all over the world .

Why : At the risk of being buried under the ever increasing pile of stuff I have around the house, I had to make a sacrifice and start actually make something out of them - sharing them as my other half put it, as opposed to stacking 'em up & admiring the beautiful piles of fabric.

The truth is I needed to channel my creativity + love of things beautiful into something productive plus my sister just had a baby then. She needed a hands-free baby carrying device, and was complaining about the lack of choice available here. I took up the challenge and made my 1st pouch which she's still using to this day! A few more was made as present for friends & relatives but I was still very unhappy about the workmanship - I taught myself to sew.

A broken sewing machine & lack of motivation to get it repaired (I was busy busy busy trying to earn a living) further delayed apootaern emergence.

Nephew no. 2 arrived & I revisited my fabric-piles. With better working environment & more patience this time, I managed to better my workmanship ( I admit it's not perfect, okay!) + settling the issues I had regarding safety & comfort. Showed them to a few friends & babywearing pals, they told me to go for it! And by then I had the perfect name for them courtesy of my nephew Hussen.

So apootaern was born, without much pomp or fanfare but definitely with enough challenges. My thanks for all the encouragements, you guys know who you are!

When : Officially apootaern was born in late 2009, but the seed was planted much earlier, was it when Hussen was born in 2007? Or way back in 1991, when I made all those baby layettes for friends of my mom while waiting for my college application result.

I'm glad I started this, I'm estatic that people actually like my work. Here's to many more pouches, ringslings and who knows, maybe a mei-tai in the horizon.

p/s: apootaern = elephant