newbie questions about wool- how much felting is enough?

[emmaegbert]

Hi everyone. My apologies in advance that I am a newbie to this. I'm just so inspired by this thread that I want to start making diapers, but I need a little advice. I have two basic questions:

1) how do I know if the wool sweater is felted "enough"- or is it not that important?
2) how to lanolize (the first time) a soaker made from a sweater? Different from just lanolizing after washing my bought soaker? I was imagining I might need to do more to really get it lanolized.

I have been using cloth diapers all along but only discovered how great wool was about a year ago. I have an almost 4-y-o who is still using dipes at night. I also have a little one on the way in late April, so I want to ramp up to making more for the new babe, planning to make some contour dipes out of recycled fabrics, and a stash of wool soakers and longies. (and I am a full-time grad student mama, much as I like the IDEA of knitting them all, there is no way I will have time for that).

So, first project is to make a second wool soaker for my son, it takes so long for the ONE aristocrats that we have to dry that when we wash it he has to wear paper dipes for 2 nights. I bought a second-hand, 100% wool sweater, and washed it once on the hot cycle with a little bit of soap (we have only access to a laundromat so I'm stuck with the basic options.) It doesn't seem as thick or tight as the aristocrats cover, is that okay? Or should I wash it again?

thanks ladies. you are all very inspirational and I am excited to start making my next baby a big stack of diapers out of our old t-shirts and sheets...

-Emma

[In Exile]

Hm, I usually wash wool sweater one setting higher than I would normally wash them- that way nothing will get smaller by surprise on my "regular" setting. Same goes for the dryer-I stick stuff into the dryer once-and then never again. That way it's pretty dense and won't get any smaller.

I would say lanolize 2 or 3 times, that way the pants can stand on their own-without a child in them.

[emmaegbert]

thank you! that is just exactly the kind of advice I need to feel confident about getting started. I'd never heard that about making them stand up with no child in them...

-Emma

[In Exile]

Oh, that's more of a joke... You know when you lanolized the living daylight out of stuff-in German we would say they are so greasy that the pants can stand up by themselves....so it's more of a joke.

But yeah, wash a setting hotter than you would normally do and dryer once- and then never again inside a dryer. I found that out the hard way when I (or my husband!!!! felted my favourite sweater by mistake- Hubby threw it int dryer and it is now a looooot smaller. But pretty dense-"felted". So now it will be turned into a wool longie for DS.