Washing your Woollies!

We washed our woollies here yesterday, the weather was amazing so I knew I could lay them out to dry. It really is simple process and your hands feel so soft afterwards. We lanolize the wool to keep them water resistant when wearing them over our diapers. These woollies can also be used just as pants if you don't cloth diaper, of course then you wouldn't have to lanolize!

Here are the products that I use. Lanolin and wool wash are a matter of preference, I find that baby shampoo works just as well as the wool wash and it is more cost friendly plus we already have it around the house. Wool only has to be washed once every 2 or 3 weeks unless of course it gets soiled. Wool has a self cleaning property in it called lanolin. If your wool feels damp or wet after wearing it, simply lay it out flat to air out and let the wool do its job of self cleaning. When the lanolin properties get too low, its time to lanolize them. Lanolizing only needs to be done every 2 or 3 months depending on how often its washed. The instructions below will help you care for your wool, for washing only, omit the lanolin step.

Here are the steps to caring for your wool:
1. Run your hot water until its good and HOT in the kitchen or bathroom sink, allowing it to drain, once its hot turn it off for a few seconds to do step 2.

2. Put the plug in your bathroom sink and put your lanolin in the bottom of the sink, I use about a 1/2-1 inch glob of the lanolin.

3. Run a little hot water in the sink and add baby shampoo or baby wash to the water (wool wash may be used too). Only run enough hot water in the sink to break up the lanolin.

4. Run room temp water to fill the rest of the sink up.

5. Turn your wool wrong side out and submerge into the mixture in the sink and let soak 30 minutes (longer if you feel it needs more lanolizing).

6. After you're done soaking, lay a towel folded in half for you to lay your wool on; take the wool out of the water and gently squeeze the excess water out, do not ring.

7. Lay your wool on the towel and roll the towel up with the wool inside, gently squeeze as your rolling.

8. Lay flat to dry, I like laying them on my patio chairs, they are mesh so very similar to a sweater rack. They take 24 hours sometimes to dry.