Help me ditch paper for cloth in our house!

[Valian]

I want to switch our household over to cloth instead of disposable paper products. But I'm not sure how many different types of cloth I'll need and what kinds of fabric are best?

Do I need different cloth for wiping faces and kitchen counters? Food clean up vs. floor grime? How do you clean your clearning cloths?

Please tell me about your system, what tasks you use different cloth for, and what kinds of fabric you find works best- different colors? different things? Help!

[sapphire_chan]

I currently have soft cloths and rough/cleaning cloths. The soft cloths are entirely knit cottons, mostly from cut up old t-shirts. The rough/cleaning cloths are a mix of socks, washcloths, kitchen towels, soft cloths that are very stained (it's silly, but I don't like blowing my nose on spotty rags), and rags from undies. The rough cloths live in a drawer in the kitchen (currently overstuffed because I'm actually caught up on laundry). The soft cloths are in a basket at the back of each toilet, in a basket in the kitchen, and in a drawer in my nightstand (I get hayfever, it's the equivalent of having a box of tissue in every room)

I also have some "I really don't care if I have to throw these away rags" they were from dh's (very beat up) uniform shirts after he stopped working at Kroger--from this nasty thin, polyester, non-absorbant material. Those get used for things like wiping up grease and I will throw them away--they're my paper towels. I use like one a month, tops.

The bathrooms have regular hand towels for drying hands and faces.

I don't finish the edges of anything.

I wash everything in the house on cold/cold. Just this week I started hanging everything on drying racks to dry, but I used to use the dryer. If I used good cloth on things like grease, I'd wash those separately.

I keep some specialized rags, like I have one sock rag in the shoe polish kit. Those rags basically get used for their purpose until they die and then I throw them out. But it keeps the polish and such out of the laundry.

Oh! We have ~3 potlucks a year here and we do use paper then if there's a large crowd.

[Wild Flowers]

We use old diapers. We have flatfolds and some terry flatfolds. I also have about 12 small kinda terry cloths, these are for small jobs. The diapers are pretty much for everything cleaning wise. I have a few hand towels for the kitchen and a few kitchen washcloths. I have cloth napkins for actual eating cleaning hands purpose. The flatfolds work really well for the small jobs that you would need to use a paper towel. Like, we do lay our bacon out on them.
We also have cloth wipes for tp, these are actual wipes, some I made, some were bought. And I have cloth hankies. The hankies and the napkins I got from dharma.
We wash everythign on hot. We started with using the old diapers to clean with, and then started using hankies, then tp, then napkins. We never really had paper napkins, we are not really napkin people, but we are trying to get the girls into good habits.

[AngelBee]

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[SaraMama]

Valian - thanks for asking this question! I've been wondering the exact same things.

One question - the wipes in your bathrooms, do you use the same wipes for TP and blowing your nose? I'm wondering if that is considered gross? I can't imagine having to wash them all separately, but then it kinda seems strange to me... Just wondering what everyone else does.

[sapphire_chan]

At this point I only use cloth for pee and use dry cloths for that. When I have a baby and am washing diapers on hot, I'll make a container with a wiping solution to store cloths for poo. Then diapers and adult tp will all be washed together.

It's really no different than blowing your nose on a few squares of paper from the roll.

[cdmaze]

I have been using my moms serger to finish off my cloth stuff- but I feel bad cause I'm going through some much of her thread and using the machine so much.

One person said they dont finish the edges of anything- does anyone use pinking shears? Does that work?

What kind of cloth for tp? Flannel? Thats what my baby wipes are.

The only thing we dont use cloth for is when my dh details his Jeep - well, he washes it with cloth and sponges, but he Armor-alls with paper towels- I have no problem with that.

But washing mirrors? Cloth doesnt seem to work and we dont get a newspaper (someone said to use wadded up newspaper)

[Wild Flowers]

I have actually had no problem washing mirrors with a flatfold. usually, because I take two into the bathroom with me to clean, I use one wet, and the mirror is the first thing I do. Then I take the dry one and dry the mirror. I just use a half vinegar half water with usually orange eo in it. And I haven't had any streaks. Then I wash the rest of the bathroom. If it is somthing that will spot, I use my drying rag. And when the wet one gets too gross, the dry one becomes the wet one.

[sapphire_chan]

Originally Posted by cdmaze

I have been using my moms serger to finish off my cloth stuff- but I feel bad cause I'm going through some much of her thread and using the machine so much.

One person said they dont finish the edges of anything- does anyone use pinking shears? Does that work?

Keep in mind that I use knit cloth almost exclusively, with a knit jersey the edges tend to naturally roll up a bit and protect the edges from fraying. Also, since I'm using cut up t-shirts many rags have one finished edge. All the rags I have have been washed and dried in the dryer hundreds of times and they're still just as they were when first made.

I have a couple of actual woven handkerchiefs that were given to me, one got a tiny hole in it and was shredded the next time it was washed. I also have a couple of rags that were failed attempts at making napkins, those are woven and have finished edges (folded over twice and then stiched down) and have survived quite well. They don't seem to clean as well as the socks and aren't as soft as the t-shirts, so they tend to be "back of the drawer" last-resort rags.

For mirrors, I'll spot clean with a damp cloth. I wash glass in my house the same way I wash the cars windshield--rub well with cleaning stuff, then squeegee off the water.

[*Jessica*]

Aside from the regular cloth (handtowels in the bathroom, dishrags and towels, etc.) we have quite a bit of cloth in our house. Most of my rags are old undershirts of Marc's. Some are cheap flannel and these don't have finished edges but have had minimal fraying. Instead of the serger you could just do a straight stitch near the edge to keep fraying down without using so much thread. They don't have to look pretty...they are rags after all. I also have some flat cloth diapers that were originally burp cloths and old kitchen towels. And microfiber cloths for use on the swiffer/swiffer wetjet.

I tend to use certain cloths for certain jobs:
yellow flannel for bathroom cleaning
white flannel with flowers for dusting and light cleaning
old kitchen towels for cleaning floor spills
old undershirts (tshirt material) for cleaning sinks, coffee table, etc.

And I have some large white towels that are simliar to flat cloth diapers that I use only for food use, like draining bacon, squeezing the moisture from frozen spinach, etc. And I have reusable cheese cloth for draining the whey from yogurt, etc.

I use cloth tp (Marc won't....yet!) and just use an old pair of jammie pants that I wore while hugely pregnant. Since they didn't fit after delivery and weren't in good enough shape to donate I cut them up as tp. They are pink and a tshirt type material as well, so they didn't need to be hemmed. I wash them with my cloth diapers and keep them stored dry in a wipe warmer on the back of the toilet. If I feel like I want a wet wipe I wet it in the sink. I use handkerchiefs that I have had since long before converting to cloth tp for tissues, but since I'm washing my cloth tp on hot I wouldn't mind wiping my nose on them.

Plus I use cloth pantiliners along with my diva cup. I just wash those with the cloth diapers since they almost never have blood on them (I my diva!)

Oh, and cloth napkins. These I really need more of for when we have company. I think I only have 8. Ideally I would have 2 dozen.

All of my cloth that isn't washed with diapers gets washed with the regular laundry. If it's greasy I soak it in a bucket with warm water and dish soap before laundering to keep it from ruining my clothes. Everything but the diaper loads is washed on cold/cold in our house and dried by machine. HTH!

[SaraMama]

I'm trying to switch all paper to cloth here. I started using cloth TP a week or so ago and am really liking it.

Now I'm wanting to stop using paper towels. I have some old bath towels that I'd like to cut into paper towel size squares. Anyone know if I need to hem them? Will the terry cloth fray or unravel?

TIA!

[EnviroBecca]

Dishcloths: cotton waffle weave, the kind that are in a big pack at the dollar store, all pink because our kitchen is pink. Used to wash one round of dishes (usually two days' worth) and then to wipe the counter until I get out a new cloth for next dishwashing.
Dishtowels: best are the cotton "flour sack" type; they dry dishes well, and they themselves get dry quickly when hung up. Used to dry 1-3 rounds of dishes; when it seems not-quite-clean, it becomes the cleanup towel and we get out a clean dishtowel.
Kitchen/dining cleanup, except for the floor: gently-used dishtowel waiting on the oven handle until needed. Once used for a serious job, it goes into the laundry.
Handtowels: terry. Washed whenever they seem dirty, as well as before and after having guests.
Cleanup of floor spills: Cruddy old towels with calendars from the '80s printed on them that EnviroDaddy's grandma gave him when he got his first apartment. These go into the wash immediately after use. (For greasy or really gross spills, we use paper towels. If just vegetable grease, we compost them.)
All these get washed with regular laundry. Every couple of months I gather up a bunch of them and soak in oxygen bleach before washing.

Napkins: lightweight cotton. Washed with regular laundry whenever they have noticeable food accumulation or are used to clean up a spill. Before a meal with guests, we put all the napkins from the table into the wash and get out clean ones.

Bathroom cleaning: just like dishcloths only green so they can't be confused with the pink ones.
Diaper wipes: flannel on one side, terry on the other. Moistened with water+tea tree oil kept in sports bottle on changing table.
These get washed with diapers in hot water with vinegar.

Handkerchiefs: single layer of hemmed flannel. In addition to nose-blowing, these are used for all baby wiping that's not in the diaper area. Washed with regular laundry unless we've been sick; then, either washed with diapers or soaked in oxygen bleach before washing with laundry.

Panty liners: flannel. Put into mesh lingerie bag and washed with my clothes.
Pads: various fabrics. Rinsed in cold water, soaked in oxygen bleach if badly stained, then hung on edge of hamper in my closet to dry until wash day. Washed with panty liners.