I’m Antonia, owner of Melliapis. I have been making slings for over 8 years and in that time, I have made well over a thousand slings and baby carriers; but lots of things have changed in that time. I’ve had two more children, bought and renovated a house during lockdown whilst pregnant, and then moved in just a few weeks before my youngest, Juniper, was born. There is one thing that hasn’t changed though; I have always been and still am pretty rubbish with social media.
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 11 down to 1 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.
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 9 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.
