Baa, Baa, Black Sheep, Have You Any Wool?

Over the summer, I knit up a few of these wool diaper covers for Luke (it's the Very Chunky Diaper pattern link).  They came out very cute, and they work really well, too!  And, apparently, you only have to wash wool covers once every few weeks.  All you have to do is air them out between diaper changes, and they are good to go.  The really don't smell...it's amazing!  And, I've had NO leaks with them, yet.  Wool fiber has some other pretty interesting characteristics, as well....here's a link from The Diaper Pin on the properties of wool, and why it is ideal for cloth diapering, if you're a research-nerd type, like me.  Apparently, I've also become a yarn nerd since I picked up knitting.  I mean, seriously, how many people do you know that rant and rave about the properties of wool yarn on their blogs?!  

 The only catch with wool covers is that you have to take some care when washing them.  You can't just throw them into the washing machine, or it will ruin them, and then your heart will hurt.  So, they have to be hand-washed/soaked in warm water with a little bit of baby soap and lanolin.  Did you know that sheep naturally secrete lanolin, which makes wool a natural repellent of water...just in case you opted out of reading the link, I couldn't leave you without some useless, random fact about wool ;).

***several days later***

So, I tried washing these things.  Washing them isn't so bad, but it takes FOREVER for them to dry!  I'm going to have to see if I can find some tips and tricks on how to dry them faster.  In the meantime, I think I may have to knit a few more wool diaper covers...there are some very cute patterns on ravelry.com =)