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 =)

Rockin' the Dipes

So, a few weeks ago I did a post about some cloth diaper soap that I wanted to try out.  I ordered some samples, and promised to come back and do a product review.  So, here is my review of Rockin Green Soap.  I tried samples of the soap that is specially formulated for hard water, which we have, in four different scents:  watermelon, green tea, clean, and lavender mint.  First of all, let me say that this soap is amazing when it comes to rinsing.  Every other soap I have tried on my diapers required multiple rinses, but with this soap, the water was free of suds on the first rinse!  This one detail deserves MAJOR props as far as I'm concerned.  It saves water, time, and money, and there's no harsh chemicals, so that gets an A+++ rating in my book.  And, when they are done washing and come out the dryer, they don't have that weird smell like other soaps I've tried.  It wasn't a bad smell, but kind of off, and not fresh or clean.  With this soap, the diapers came out without any scent at all, which was a nice change.  The *only* thing I was disappointed about was that they didn't actually come out smelling like the scent on the package.  The watermelon smelled weird in the package, the clean one didn't have too much scent at all, and both the lavender mint and green tea smelled nice in the package.  Of all four, I liked the green tea the best.  It actually did have a slight fresh scent after one wash.  So, I'm thinking that maybe if I use it for awhile, maybe the scent will kick in.  Or, maybe it's just our water that over powers the natural oils in the detergent, and causes the other soaps to have that weird smell.  I use regular detergent for our clothes, and not all of those make our clothes smell the way it smells in the box.  Oh, I should also mention that after I tried the Hard Rock samples (that's the name of the line of detergent for hard water), they came out with a Hard Rock 2.0 version, so maybe that one will work better, scent wise.  Either way, I highly, highly recommend this detergent if you use cloth diapers.  I've never tried a detergent that works as well as this on my diapers.  I give it 4.5/5.0 stars.  Oh, and another added perk is that they have a rewards program.  You earn points when you purchase items, and once you reach 300 points, you get a free bag of detergent, or you can cash in for other items they sell.  Good stuff!

Craft Basket Wednesday

Well, I've still been working on Rachel's baby sweater, but seeing as that is a longer, more-extensive project, I don't really have any updates.  But, I have been making some wool diaper covers for the new baby!  In the midst of such a long project like a sweater, I wanted something that I could work up quickly, like in a day, so I could feel at least a little gratification at completing something.  So, I found this chunky diaper cover pattern at Ravelry, and I've actually made three of them already.  They fit the bill perfectly, as they finished in a day, plus, they are so cute!  All they are missing is the button.  The pattern is for a newborn baby, but I actually shortened the length from the designated 14.5" to more like 11.25" before finishing off.  The first one I made looked too long for a newborn, so I may have to go back and fix it.  I normally use Fuzzibunz cloth diapers, but the size small is too small for my new babies.  They outgrow the newborn size so quickly, and I didn't want to spend a ton of money on smaller cloth diapers.  So, I'm going to try these out to use with my inserts.  I've never used wool covers before, but they are supposedly ideal for diapering, for a variety of reasons (I won't get into that here, but I'm sure a quick Google search can help you if you're curious).  You only need a few covers if you are using wool, which is another perk, and I was able to get three, so far, from one hank of wool...I have a small ball left, so I'll see if I can get one more cover out of it.

The front (minus the button):

The Back:

**sorry these first two pictures are so dark...

One of the button holes on the side flap:

OH!  This is a new discovery I've made in the knitting world.  I'm very excited about this!  (does that make me too weird??).  Anyway, I've started keeping my current knitting project in a gallon sized zip lock bag.  The beauty of this is that your work all stays together, I don't have to worry about the kids dropping food on my extra ball of yarn - so, it stays clean while I'm knitting - , it travels well, AND I can keep all my notions in there with the project - a copy of the pattern, tapestry needle, crochet hook for fixing mistakes, tape measure, scissors...  It's so awesome!  I'm glad I discovered this.

Here is the other hank of wool that I plan on using for a few more covers (but, if the baby isn't a girl, I'll have to save them or gift them).  You can see how the yarn comes in a big, messy bundle...It was kind of difficult to work with like that, so I just rolled it up into a ball, like the one behind it, before starting :

And, just in case you were wondering, that chunky yarn is really fun to work with!  The knitting just comes together SO quickly, so it's really gratifying.  Anyway, that's all I have for now!  Stay tuned for more progress on Rachel's Triangle Top Sweater!  It's coming along, slowly, but surely =)

Now, you can go see what other fun crafts people have in their craft baskets at Knit Together (except she doesn't have it up there yet...I'll come back and link later).

Product Pre-Review

My last post about Andrew in the diaper pail reminded me that I am starting to run low on soap for my cloth diapers.  To make a long story short, we have hard well-water, so I have to be very choosy about detergent for my diapers if I want to avoid build-up problems that can cause leakage, or worse, ruin my diapers.  You pretty much can't use any detergent that contains scents, dyes, bleaches, or other additives that can ruin the absorbency of the diapers.  So, after MUCH research, trial, and error, I've found a detergent that works well enough.  I currently use Allen's Naturally, which is free from any kind of agent that may destroy my investment in cloth diapering.  And, while I'm happy with the level of cleanliness, and the fact that my diapers don't leak, I have never been excited about the fact that it is scentless.  I like my laundry to come out smelling fresh and nice, but my diapers just don't.  They don't stink, but they don't have a nice scent, either.  So, a friend of mine on Facebook, who also cloth diapers, posted about this new detergent specifically for cloth diapers, and they are scented!!  And, get this, they have a special formula for hard-water!!  I can't wait to try this stuff out.  It's called Rockin' Green Soap.  I ordered some samples today (just in case it doesn't work as well as advertised), in 4 (oh yes!  FOUR) different scents:  watermelon, lavender mint, clean, and green tea.  They actually have a few more than that, but those were the only ones I was interested in.  I also got a bottle of the pail freshener to try out in the lavender mint scent.  So, for fellow cloth users, I'll follow up this post with a review of how well the stuff works.  Also, if you are a cloth user, what kind of detergent do you use, or have you ever tried the Rockin' Green Soap?  I'm always on the lookout for tips on keeping my diapers clean and in good condition...I need these to last through several rounds of diapering!