Rule #1 Keep the laundry moving!
Rule # 2 I you run out of non-thrown-up-on towels, blankets, sheets, and rags, (which I have done before), the empty bathtub is a wonderful place to make a bed out of any cloth you can find (T-shirts are nice and soft and cottony).
It is times like these that I am grateful for a dryer! And then I start to think of people who have, and people who do live with sickness in cold places without stuff like dryers. And I think of times in winter when I have gone without a dryer, with several in cloth diapers. I remember my Grandmother telling about diapers hanging around the stove, and I am reminded of this book,
"The next year the twins were born. Fanny washed diapers and hung them on the stove
, washed diapers and hung them across the mantel, washed diapers and hung them from the doorknobs." I've done this before. Actually, with sublimation things usually dry faster hanging outside, even when it is very cold, unless it is very foggy or snowy, rainy, sleety, oblecky, or "any other kind of precipitation"-y. I have even been able to dry stuff while it was snowing. The snow was so dry and powdery, and the wind was blowing so much, they (thankfully, I really needed them) dried at a speed comparable to the dryer I didn't have right them.
When I lived in a dry climate, I even successfully dried laundry outside for 2 weeks where the hottest temperature in the middle of the hottest day, was 1*. I think it has to do with the air circulation. Just like a fan will defrost your freezer faster because new air molecules have't gotten wet yet. Makes me wonder just how much better for you the air outside is compared to the air inside. It has been said that the reason we get sick more in winter isn't because it is colder, it is because we spend more time indoors because it is so hard to get kids ready to go outside!
After experiencing not having a dryer in the middle of winter, (with several babies in cloth diapers), more than once, I tend to lean heavily towards polyester fleece and polyester
micro-plush (
minky)
material to have winter clothes and blankets made out of. I often think of the pioneers freezing to death on the plains, and I wish I could send them a
micro-plush blankie. I usually prefer natural materials like
hemp,
linen (made from your good old healthy
flax plant), cotton,
and
peace silk (I love silk!), but for warmth, softness, extreme durability, and washing and drying fast and easily, you can't beat polyester fleece or
micro-plush! Did you know that not only can you cut fleece and not have to hem it to keep it from unraveling, but the same thing is true with
micro-plush. As you cut it, lots of little bits that you have cut get all over, as the nature of the material makes you cut lots of little things as you cut it, but if you then wash it, and get all the extra cut little fuzzes off, it will never unravel more at all. So any pattern that calls for fleece, you can also use
micro-plush (
minky) instead. (And I think
micro-plush is so much softer and nicer, and it doesn't get pilly and itchy as fast if you wash it a million times on hot because it got thrown up on!) Though the longer the knap, the itchier it tends to get if it is washed a million times. And unless it says so, it is usually only soft on one side.
I realized that I can send these things back in time, in a way. There are people right now, who are living just like the pioneers, and who could use
plastic (polyester) blankets just as much! Not to mention homeless people in our own backyards, who could use an
extrmely durable,
extremely soft,
extremely water resistant,
extremely easy and fast to wash and dry (really cheep at the laundry matt - no extra quarters because it isn't dry yet), blanket!
If you want to make a cute homemade blanket that is easy to sew or even no-sew:
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Fleece-Tie-Blanket (If I were to use
micro-plush
minky for this, I would make the fringe things slightly thicker.
Micro-plush does shed a little as you wash it the first time, shrinking the size of things like fringes, but after that it won't ever unravel, just like fleece!)
http://www.projectlinus.org/
http://www.mcc.org/kits/blankets
The reason I like these places is stated so well on the "about" page of the Project Linus: "Provide a rewarding and fun service opportunity for interested individuals and groups in local communities, for the benefit of children."
There are lots of places where you can donate money, (lots of money), to help people, but even when there are so many people in the world who need help, I think perhaps we have gone too far in making helping efficient. There is something else there that is just as or I would argue, more important than how many blankets are donated. It is the person giving the blanket feeling it. If you just donate money, there is no personal connection. But if you spend time making something like a blanket, or a fleece hat, you have time to personalize it and to think about how the person who receives it will enjoy the personality you give it.
You can sometimes get micro-plush blankets for really cheap at a local store this time of year, as they try to sell out Christmas stuff before New Years. - I would buy the cheap blankets, and just use them as material to sew what I wanted.
http://www.marthastewart.com/265844/fleece-hats
(remember, when using
micro-plush minky instead of fleece, cut it a little larger because it sheds that first time and looses a little around the edges - then it should never unravel at all again!)
Even better yet, make a bunch of blankets and hats (and anything else you can think of) and go find and visit homeless people in your own back yard. Then you don't have to just imagine their happiness. Giving isn't only about the person being given to being helped. I would argue that it is mostly about us having a chance to experience that pure joy that comes from doing it!
