June 1, 2015  Zero Waste Mommy will take a summer hiatus this month.  See you July 7th!

May 26, 2015  Sure we all know the double-up your clothespins trick, but here are some more hacks to help save time, space and clothespins.  Because chances are, you’ll run out of at least one of them.

Shirts or Dresses

Moms of old used to hang shirts from the top.  But since then we’ve decided to start wearing pants and stop ironing.  Since clothespins leave unsightly marks on the shoulders, we try to hide those by hanging our shirts from the bottom.

You can still go old school and hang from the tops – just make sure you get the pin right on that seam.

If you hang your shirts or dresses on hangers, try using a second hanger like this.  This helps keep the wind from sending your summer florals into Sandoval County (that’s the next county over for you non-Querqueños).

Pants

Dress Pants (or more realistically, pants that aren’t jeans):  they are light enough to dry upside down, inside seams together, as demonstrated with these toddler sweatpants.  This keeps them smooth; hopefully no need to iron. 

Jeans:  too heavy for the dress pant/sweatpant method.  Hang from the waist, everything asunder; inside out, legs apart, crotch unzipped.

Why inside out?  Because the sun is awesome at naturally sanitizing your clothes, bleaching out stains, killing microscopic bugs… AND….fading your colors.  So turn them inside out or dry them in the shade. 

Onesies

Running out of clothespins?  Hang onesies by the snaps.

Hankies or Dish Cloths

One of these takes up 33″ of clothesline but only 4 clothespins.  The other, 8 pins but only 8.5″ of line.  It’s your call.

Sheets

The only article of clothing allowed to be folded in half.  To prevent a crease in the middle of your sheet, connect two ends on the line, like this:

I personally like to wash linens first and use two lines to dry the sheets while the second load of wash runs.  The sheets will be dry in no time, giving you space for the second load.

Socks

There are as many ways to hang socks are there are monster-themed cereals:  hang separately, hang by the toes, hang by the heels.  I actually like the hang by the tops, two socks to a clothespin and only on the inside of each sock, like this:

This way you are saving a clothespin, keeping the socks separated AND reducing the surface area covered by the pin, allowing an already difficult article of clothing to dry faster.

Towels

If you’re gonna try to dry bath towels outside, make sure they are folded over on the top an inch or two, making them secure on the line.

Towels, like socks, take forever to dry.  Some people like to throw them in the dryer a little before or after the line.

Another idea is to just dry them in the shower.  The heavy towels won’t pull on your clothesline, or take up line space and they’re going to end up in that room anyway, right?