PLEASE NOTE WE ARE CURRENTLY AWAY, ALL ORDERS PLACED BEFORE OCTOBER 7TH WILL BE PROCESSED ON OUR RETURN 

Turnaround Time: Muslin & Mesh Ring Slings – 5 – 7 working days | Essential / Deluxe Carriers – 3 – 4 weeks | Wrap Conversions – 5 – 6 weeks

Melliapis Logo
Front Carry Custom Baby Carrier

About Melliapis

I’m Antonia, owner of Melliapis. I have been making slings for over 10 years and in that time, I have made well over a thousand slings and baby carriers. I have been sewing for much longer than this though, in fact since I was at school, where I made my own clothes for my dolls and teddies and moved onto making my own outfits.

Our name came from the initials of my two sons and my husband, B, E and E, we are from Manchester and the worker bee is symbolic for the city. I had thought about Honeybee Slings initially but wanted something a little different so looked up the latin name for a honey bee and it is Apis mellifera (bee honey-gathering) so Melliapis (pronounced Melly-appis) is the literal translation of Honeybee. The signature topstitching on our carriers represents the waggle dance that bees do to show other bees where the best flowers are.

A Family Business

Firstly, it’s not just me (Antonia) it really is a family business; my husband, Eno, does a lot behind the scenes and my eldest, also Eno, likes to help too. We have 4 children aged from 12 to 2 and they are home educated so working from home with all the family around can be really busy!

Secondly, I wear lots of other ‘hats’ – I’m a sling librarian and carrying consultant, doula and breastfeeding supporter, I’m also an active campaigner for maternity services as well as being a wife and mother and running a business.

Thirdly, I’m the marketing department, website manager, photographer, administrator, post room, sewing machine operator, pattern cutter, stock buyer and product developer. My husband is the accountant, and my son is the packaging assistant.

Geometric Ring Sling Baby Carrier

From the beginning

The first slings I made came about because I wanted a pretty ring sling at a reasonable price, after I had tried on a few at my sling library but couldn’t find a fabric that I liked for the budget that I had, I decided to buy my own fabric and rings and have a go at making my own. My first ever sling was made from a beautiful, patterned pashmina and some green rings, I loved it but after trying some different types of slings at the sling library I was hooked and wanted to try allllll the slings!

I went on to make a meh dai and a friend asked me to convert her woven wrap into a meh dai, then I went away and trained as a babywearing consultant and spent some time designing my own buckle carrier, choosing all the bits I liked (or didn’t like) from the carriers I had tried at sling library.

It’s now almost 11 years later since I made my first sling and I have made many different types of carrier, lots of custom designs and added some of the most popular ones to our stock items on the website. If there is something you think you would like to see then we are always up for a chat, I love to find a solution to a problem and make it pretty at the same time.