Wool beginner

[MEcatlady17]

I have been searching old posts on wool, but I am getting mixed information.

I have been wanting to try wool since we started CDing 7 months ago when our baby was born. I just bought a homemade wool soaker at my local farmers market and now I need to know what to do next!
I have lansinoh already.
I read that to wash I can use Lansinoh with a baby wash without buying anything special. We have Canus lil goats milk soap I could use or Shaklee baby shampoo/soap. I've seen some videos on how to wash/lanolize by melting the lanolin in hot water, mixing in soap, and then soaking, squishing rather than scrubbing, etc.

So what do I do to get started? Do I just melt a pea sized amount of lanolin and then soak and dry on a towel? Do I need to repeat this to get it nice and lanolized?

Is my homemade soaker going to be absorbent? I just ready a post with someone saying that they don't use homemade because baby's clothes always get wet. I really wanted to use this at night under pajamas. Will only felted wool work for that?

Any tips or advice for this newbie? I really love the idea of using natural fibers. I don't have the money to buy wool soakers and pants resale. I can however get them affordable through local knitters and thought I'd buy some local wool for DD's aunt to knit her some longies to wear to bed this winter.

thanks!

[mumkimum]

What I'd do to prep your soaker is melt a pea-size amount of your lanisoh in warm-ish water, let it soak in there for at least 30 minutes (you could let it go a few hours). As you lift it out, push on the soaker from the bottom to squish the excess water out - I *think* you may need to rinse it (you may want to put a tbsp of vinegar in the rinse, just swish it and then take it out of the rinse squishing excess water out from the bottom - don't wring). Then, to help dry faster, lay flat on a clean, dry towel, roll up the towel - squish the excess water out, and lay flat on either another clean towel or gently hang. Check later that day or the next day and you may need to re-roll in a towel to help speed up drying.

Personally, I've never heard that you should add any soap to your lanolizing treatment. I would recommend getting some kind of already made wool-wash though, eventually - they'll treat the wool a lot easier & more thoroughly in my experience (I love kookaburra woolwash - doesn't need rinsing after theirs so washing your wool is pretty fast, imse vimse wool shampoo is good, or getting a woolwash bar might be a good idea at least to combine with using the lanisoh you already have).

I have used soakers that weren't felted and haven't had a problem with stuff leaking through them, even at nighttime (that said - I would go for felted wool over unfelted. *IF* you have a non-felted soaker you'd like to minimally felt, you can do it really gently by wringing it a little and using a touch of soap & really hot water while washing it. The combo of soap, agitation (wringing), and hot water will help it felt. But just doing it for, well, a minute or so by hand instead of in a washer or by hand for a half hour or more shouldn't cause problems for a nicely knit soaker, and might be enough felting to improve waterrepellancy).

There are knit soaker patterns out there that are meant to get felted, too, if you want to try something like that in the future.
And even though it sounds complicated, using wool really isn't quite the hassle it sometimes looks like. Have fun.

[weezix]

keep in mind that a felted soaker isn't going to have little/if any stretch to it. I would think felted wraps would work great.
I'm knitting my own longies right now and i've heard people say that they just use a little more lanolin if they get leaking issues. I personally only use a pea sized amount (per pair) and believe it or not have NEVER had a leak. I used wool at night on my toddlers.