After reading her post, I decided this just may be a neat thing to try. I ordered a few yards of diaper cloth from Fabrics.com and got to work. It took me about an hour to make about 30 towels. The measurement is very close to an 11X11 when finished. I measured out a yard of fabric, folded it in half and made two cuts, one at the 12" mark an another at the 24" mark on the cutting board. This gave me three strips of fabric that were 12 inches wide and almost 36 inches long. I proceeded to cut each strip into 12 inch blocks. The fabric is a little shy of being able to make it a true 12 by 12 inch block but it is no big deal.
Once the blocks were cut and tossed in a pile near my serger, I loaded it up with multi-colored thread and set out to serging the edges. I tossed them all in a pile and when finished. I used a large eyed needle and tucked the end threads back into the stitching. I then washed them with a load of bath towels. I added a cup of vinegar to help improve the absorbability.
When they came out of the dryer, Papaw and I folded them long ways and tossed in a basket on the kitchen counter. I still have paper towels on the counter. I had a large store of them in the pantry but I am retraining myself to grab one of the fabric ones most of the time. I revert to using the paper towels when cleaning bathrooms and wiping down the toilets. I am sure, I will always till have a few rolls of paper towels on hand for cleaning our bathrooms in the future.
The cloth towels made from the diaper fabric are thin but more durable and absorbent than a regular paper towel. I used a single layer of diaper cloth. I suppose if you wanted to have more absorbent towels for cleaning, you could serge a couple of layers together.
We are folks that pull off paper towels and fold them for our dinner napkin so, having fabric replacements for our everyday dinner napkins is a bit of a treat for us.
Little by little, I guess we can all do a few things here and there to scale back. I am all about going green as long as going green makes real sense and does not use more natural resources in the long run. So many times when looking into what seems like a great idea for going green with some things, in the long run really isn't helping the environment, such as solar energy. When one really looks deeply into solar, it is easy to see so much pollution to our planet is happening in the process of making solar panels and batteries and in the restoration of batteries. Going green for us has to make sense all the way around for us. So far, we are thinking that the reusable non paper towel is a good thing. They are small and many can be tossed into everyday loads of laundry without adding too much bulk. It really seems like a smart and economical thing to do for us.
Many blessings,
When they came out of the dryer, Papaw and I folded them long ways and tossed in a basket on the kitchen counter. I still have paper towels on the counter. I had a large store of them in the pantry but I am retraining myself to grab one of the fabric ones most of the time. I revert to using the paper towels when cleaning bathrooms and wiping down the toilets. I am sure, I will always till have a few rolls of paper towels on hand for cleaning our bathrooms in the future.
The cloth towels made from the diaper fabric are thin but more durable and absorbent than a regular paper towel. I used a single layer of diaper cloth. I suppose if you wanted to have more absorbent towels for cleaning, you could serge a couple of layers together.
We are folks that pull off paper towels and fold them for our dinner napkin so, having fabric replacements for our everyday dinner napkins is a bit of a treat for us.
Little by little, I guess we can all do a few things here and there to scale back. I am all about going green as long as going green makes real sense and does not use more natural resources in the long run. So many times when looking into what seems like a great idea for going green with some things, in the long run really isn't helping the environment, such as solar energy. When one really looks deeply into solar, it is easy to see so much pollution to our planet is happening in the process of making solar panels and batteries and in the restoration of batteries. Going green for us has to make sense all the way around for us. So far, we are thinking that the reusable non paper towel is a good thing. They are small and many can be tossed into everyday loads of laundry without adding too much bulk. It really seems like a smart and economical thing to do for us.
Many blessings,
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