For the love of Wool

I've been using cloth diapers as a mom now for almost two years and I've known about them forever since my mom cloth diapered me and my siblings. But I only recently learned about wool soakers and longies. Now they are my new obsession... I mean, hobby.

A little boy at a 'Diaper Free Baby' meeting was wearing a pair of lightweight wool short pants over a thin cloth diaper. It was summer and my toddler was getting increasingly mobile and while I love cloth diapers, they sometimes seemed a bit bulky and hot. So this little boy looked pretty comfortable. And - his mom mentioned that she had knit his pants! I was all ears!

I came home and did my research. (I love Google search!) And there's a whole world of information out there - blogs, forums, Etsy shops. I started by ordering some wool from KnitPicks and I quickly knit up a sweet pink soaker for my little one using a pattern I found on Ravelry. Loved it. Except, it leaked. And wool was supposed to be this magical material that wouldn't leak or smell. It turns out that I thought I was being smart by ordering a special type of wool that could be machine washed but it just meant that it had been treated by some chemicals, which negated some of the natural properties. At that point I was a bit disheartened and not up to knitting another one (in all my spare time).

Then I discovered - 'upcycling'!

To be continued tomorrow as sleep calls me now...


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