More about laundry... line drying

For all of the laundry that I do, I have been slow at embracing the drying rack.  First, I only had one, it was rickety (the dog chewed one of the legs) and I could never get one entire load on the rack.  It was just easier to move everything from the washer into the dryer, press start and walk away.  And leave it there until the next opportune moment to deal with the pile of (now wrinkled) clothes.  Usually what would happen would be that I wouldn't have time to fold the clothes between loads and end up with 2-3 large baskets full of laundry to fold.  I hate folding wrinkled clothes. So, I just hated folding clothes since they were always wrinkled.  This is why I like diaper laundry... no wrinkles and no folding.   Don't get me wrong, I was (and still am to the extent that time allows) a bit neurotic with folding laundry.  I like it to be well folded (E will tell you happily about the time I bought a flip-fold) and I am especially funny about my sheets.  My mother always ironed our sheets (and I think starched them a bit) and I always did, even in college. I am an ace at folding even fitted sheets...  As I said, I was somewhat neurotic about it.  I love crisp, wrinkle free sheets. However, with 3 kids, 2 dogs and a host of things to do, laundry never gets the attention it needs and ironing sheets and  the flip-fold went out when child #2 was born.

The choice to cloth diaper was one I made for two reasons: helping the environment and our budget.  My friend M line-dried her BumGenius diapers and they always looked a lot better than mine.  Of course, line drying was better for both the environment and our budget (albeit just a little on our budget).  Apparently your average electric dryer consumes 875 kilowatt hours a year or assuming you do about 148 loads of laundry a year, it releases about 350 pounds of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere. I should double that number...  Aside from the stand alone freezer, it is the home appliance that has the greatest carbon dioxide output. Obviously limiting its use would help lower my carbon footprint and reduce greenhouse emissions.

And so inspired by my friend M, I took the plunge. I bought another drying rack and started finding sunny places to dry the diapers. They did look better and when I realized the puppy wasn't going to play with the rack outside and was going to leave my laundry alone, I started drying everything.  I have plenty of space in the laundry room for when it rains, and so for the past several weeks, I have been completely neglecting my dryer.  At this point it only gets used for emergencies (ie: someone's special doggie is soaked and bedtime is in 15 minutes).

The best part about line drying is the sheets.  I strung up a cord between two trees in my backyard and hang the sheets to dry.  They dry almost wrinkle free and they are nice and crisp, almost as if I had ironed and starched them.  The same can be said for tablecloths and cloth napkins (which with 3 kids, get washed ALOT). Most of the clothes also dry wrinkle free and crisply and I fold them as I pluck them off the rack. I am not sure if this saves time or not, but I probably won't have 3 baskets of wrinkled clothing waiting to be folded anymore and I enjoy laundry so much more than before.

The one downside would be towels.  As much as I like crisp sheets, I don't really embrace sand-paper towels... some have said the feeling was invigorating in the morning.  True, I guess, but it must be a feeling that has to grow on me.  I have noticed that the higher quality towels dry better and with a bit of shaking and wringing they soften up considerably.  So, I will work on the towels and my first purchase once I move will be an umbrella drying rack. Let me know if you have any tricks for softening line dried towels.