Flats Handwashing Challenge: Day 5

Today is Day 5 of the Flats and Handwashing Challenge, hosted by Dirty Diaper Laundry. This year, there are over 450 participants from around the world. Things I've learned so far:

• When tie-dying unbleached cotton flats, be absolutely sure they are fully prepped and all of the cotton oils have been washed out of the fabric before starting. If you don't, you will end up with dull, streaky colour, which is far less attractive than what you might have intended.
• Hide the disposable liners from your husband, or make sure there are adequate fleece ones on the change table. Thankfully, this only happened once and was a pee, so the liner was washed for reuse just like the fleece liners.
• It takes a long time for a 18.9L bucket of water to cool off enough to wring diapers out by hand. Ouch!
• The Hillbilly Washing Machine is much easier on the back with a longer handle. MUCH. EASIER.
• If building a Hillbilly Washing Machine, pick the red rubber plunger, not the black one. The black ones smell like creosote when immersed in hot water. Pretty gross!
• Don't wash more than one day's worth of diapers at a time.
• I really suck at putting a flat on with a Snappi, and I can't be bothered to use pins. Thankfully, they're fantastically trim in a wrap. We like to go coverless a lot, though, so my ineptitude sucks a bit -- clearly I need more practice!
• Doubling up flats for overnight works best if you fold each of them into a different-sized pad, putting the thickest, narrowest one in the wrap first and layering the wider, thinner one on top.
• Fleece makes a great liner. I'd become so used to the convenience of the flushable options, I'd forgotten how efficient and easy the fleece is -- the trick is to let the poopy liners sit on the diaper for a bit before shaking it off into the toilet.
• Measure the detergent carefully when adding it to the Hillybilly Washing Machine. Eyeballing it can result in lots of suds and (many) extra rinses suck big time!
• Handwashing the diapers wasn't nearly as gross as I'd expected! (I was very happy about this! ;))
• Handwashing every day means I could have easily gotten by with just a dozen diapers and 2 or 3 covers (an approximate retail cost of $86 -- 3 one-size covers + 2x6pk of OsoCozy flats).

All in all, the flats are performing as well as I would expect them to and this week is only reinforcing my love of the simplest diaper on the market. Flats rock, though I'd like to get better at closing them with a Snappi so I can show them off more!