Clothesline Love!!!

I officially love my clothesline!  I got my electric bill recently and even though we were gone for 2 weeks to the fireworks tent and the boys were left to do their own laundry my bill was decreased by about a hundred dollars from last year in a similar month.  I'm sure the boys didn't use the clothesline to dry their laundry but I'm also sure they only did the bare minimum of laundry so the dryer probably didn't run very much.  Crazy boys, not wanting to hang their undies out for all to see!  :-) Anyway that $100 is a pretty significant difference in my book.  And while I'm saving the green I'm being environmentally responsible and reducing my family's carbon footprint.  But beyond the money-saving, going green thing I really just <3 a clothesline.  I love being outside in the morning hanging up clothes.  I love the way clothes smell when they are dried outside.  I love watching the clothes flap around in the breeze.

I grew up hanging clothes out to dry.  In fact, I grew up washing clothes in a wringer washer!  We had a well that ran dry on occasion so the wringer washer saved water.  Now I haven't had a clothesline for several years until earlier this summer.  I finally convinced hubby that I really would use one.  (I have been hanging a lot of clothes out on a rack for a couple of summers!)  He bought a few treated 4x4s and some line and eye screws and whalla! I have a clothesline.  He's a really good guy!  :)  (Now I'm trying to convince him to build me a couple of Square Foot Gardens!  This has involved a lot of batting of eyelashes and sweetness on my part! Such a chore to flirt and be sweet to that man!)

I have a pretty good system for the laundry but it has taken me a long time to get there.  Some might say that it took several chicks leaving the nest!  I freely admit that there are times when I have a mountain, and I truly mean "mountain", of laundry to do and fold.  That happens when we get really busy (remember my sons all played every sport available and that means a lot of practice and workout clothes!) but for the most part I can stay up with it.  The addition of the clothesline has adjusted how I do some things.  For instance, I would often put a load of laundry in at night and dry it in the morning, then fold and put away.  Sometimes I would forget or get busy and the laundry would sour.  YUCK!  (My sis-in-law says her husband can smell if she leaves his laundry in the washer for even an hour.  Thank goodness nobody has that good a nose in this family!)  But, of course, soured laundry always  necessitates a rewash and that costs time and money in extra water, energy to heat the water, and detergent.

While I have only had my lovely chothesline for a couple of monthes I have learned a few things through trial and error and through internet research.  Here are my tips to keeping the laundry caught up and ending up with clean, fresh smelling, soft, not stiff, line-dried clothes:

1.  Do a load a day just to keep the laundry monster at bay!

I wash in the morning and hang it out pretty quickly.  (This may have to change when school starts though.)  I leave it out on the line for most of the day generally, sometimes bringing it in just before supper time.  I have experimented with what to do when school starts but I think I will just have to work that out come August 10! If you have any ideas or experience in handling working full time and using a clothesline, leave me a comment with ideas or suggestions, please!

2.  Fluff on an air only cycle in your dryer for just a couple of minutes.

Folks complain that clothes dried on a line are stiff and rough but I found that if they are fluffed in the dryer for just a bit, literally a couple of minutes, they aren't nearly as rough and aren't really stiff at all.  I do this on the air only cycle.  If I'm doing two loads back to back I only fluff long enough to load the next load in the washer and get it started.  I give them a good 'snap' as a I take them out of the dryer to de-wrinkle a bit more.  I tried fluffing before hanging them out and after.  Before is definitely better!

3. Sort and stack as you remove the clothes from the dryer, t-shirts in one pile, shorts in another, undies in a third, etc.

As I take them out of the dryer I sort and stack them.  I stack as I plan to hang them, t-shirts with the hems together, undies with the waists all together, etc.  I also put each person's laundry together.  This saves time later when I am folding and sorting and putting away.

4.  Hang like things together.

They are already sorted so this is easy.  It also saves clothespins.  You can clip the corner of two towels together on the line and use only one clothespin.  It also saves time and bending.  If you have all of your washclothes stack together in your basket you can pick them all up at one time and hold one corner with one hand and pin them with the other hand saving yourself from bending over multiple times to pick up the next item.  This works with undies, t-shirts, towels, and washclothes and some other things.

5.  Hang things so that the heaviest part of the garment is down.

This helps pull out wrinkles as they dry.  For example, hang pants with the leg seams together and from the bottom of the legs.  For pants like jeans that take a long time to dry due to the bulk of fabric hang one pant leg from one line and one from the line next to the first.  (It looks hilarious but it works great!)

6. Use a clothespin apron.

Don't leave your pins on the line.  They get dirty and don't last as long.  You can buy or make an apron pretty easily  and inexpensively and it is so worth it to have one!

7.  Fold things as you take them off the line.

This saves you a ton of time.  And your clothes are already sorted so it's easy.  I do this if it's pretty outside.  If it's hotter than Hades.... I bring 'em in to fold!

Hope this helps any of you that are interested in saving some green and going green!  Leave me a comment or copy a link to facebook for me.  Thanks for reading.

Serving the Lover of my Soul,
Laurie Jo