2008.12.09

I took a break from Larry’s socks on Saturday to whip up a Calorimetry:

It was a very fast knit – a couple of hours at most.  It’s warm, cosy, and pretty cute, if I do say so myself.

And since it’s Tuesday, and Tuesday is laundry day, I wanted to tell you about soapnuts.

I first heard about them from one of the mommy blogs out there, which then led me to the Daily Grommet, which I’m now addicted to.  But I digress.

Anyway, CC and I decided to take a chance, and we split a sampler pack.

Soapnuts are just what they sound like:  real nuts, from a real tree, and when they get wet they get sudsy.  They’re odorless, hypo-allergenic, and biodegradable.

You use three or four at a time, just toss them in a drawstring bag and put that into the laundry.  At the end of laundry day, just take the bag out of the machine and let it all air-dry.  Lather, rinse, repeat (literally!) until the nuts have disintegrated.  Then simply throw them away.  I bet you can even compost them.

And they go a long way – the original batch I used lasted for seven loads of laundry.

The hardest part about the whole process is remembering to leave the bag in the machine – I keep forgetting it’s in there, and tossing the whole load of laundry into the dryer.  Then I have to paw through the wet clothes to find it again.  But it’s a very minor thing, really, and it’s well worth the effort.

You can read more about them here.