Hello Dear Reader,
My youngest child may be in the last few months of being a teenager, but as a mum, I’ll never forget the transition between washing my children and getting them to do so themselves. We’ve all tried to give them some privacy and stood behind a closed door and shouted “I can’t hear any splashing!” They’ve come out of the bathroom with the soap still dry!!!! I lured them with anything I could and in the end, resorted to ‘foam’ soap in a can!! They could make themselves look like a snowman and rinse off! As a family, we’ve always used wash mits! I think they save on soap or shower gel as one quick squirt and a rub all over gets me clean. I make ours from old towels! Here’s how I make them.
You will need some ribbon, or bias binding, or home made binding folded over and edged. I cut those silly ribbons out of clothing before I recycle the clothes for fabric. I keep it in a wee bag until I make wash mits! Everything has a use in this house.
I cut the towels down into 12″ by 9″ rectangles - or near enough!
I cut the ribbon into 6″ lengths.
Fold in half so it measures 6″ by 4.5″ - or near to that, it doesn’t have to be exact. Tuck the ribbon inside leaving some out to sew whilst you hold it. Use the already edged side of the towel as the opening of your wash mit, you will then have a secure and neat edge. Sew a quarter inch seam all the way round two of the open sides, leaving a hole for your hand and one side is the fold so you don’t need to sew it.
Here’s the finished article - a homemade wash mit. We use hooks in our bath/shower so we can hang ours up to dry after showering and just wash them along with your towels. I use old towels as cleaning clothes, once the wash mit has become too scruffy.
Over to you. Does any one else have any vivid memories of encouraging their children to wash independently? What methods did you resort to? Any one else resort to novelty soap?
Until tomorrow,
Love Froogs
I've been knitting dishcloths this week. Ridiculously expensive to buy, when you can knit four or so fro,a hank of dishcloth yarn.
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I reuse towels until they are shredded. I may well try this idea. I swear my soon to be 16 year still does not use the soap or body wash. She would stand there until the hot water ran out. We solved that by making a shower play list!
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When my children were young I should have bought stock in those scrubby things (remind me of a kitchen scrubby for the bath). I would buy them in their favorite colors and they liked how they would lather up the bubbles. For some reason the idea of a washcloth was beneath them…lol. Sadly now my biggest thing is getting them to understand that they don't do manual labor and I cannot believe they're dirty enough to justify 10 minute showers.
I have a dickens of a time throwing out towels even as they thin down….so they go through a life long progression….ranging from towels, to cloths, to rags….all being hemmed, trimmed, etc into whatever I can to use them.
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I am with Shara on this one. I have towels which are over forty years old which originally came from my Grandmother- bath towels now re hemmed and made into handtowels, her handtowels now facecloths, and her facecloths are cleaning rags…
[and very worn or stained ones go to the animal shelter for drying the dogs]
And who started this silly, spendthrift idea that all your towels must colour-match anyway?
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I have managed at last to sign in after reading your brilliant blog for some time.
Just brought myself a sewing machine so will look forward to making use of the old towels
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Hi Froogs, no trouble getting my children here to wash themselves properly on their own when they were young. But my late teen son seems to have taken to rationing soap. When you're male, adolescent, sporty and live in Australia, not having a daily scrub is cruel to others, especially one's mother. No top and tail wash in a bucket of water here either. Has to be a full on wash.
Love the ease of the wash mits. Thanks for the idea. I think even I could manage them.
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This summer my eldest whipped up a bunch of these for our church summer program. The difference? We dropped a bar of soap inside, tied it off with a cloth type hairband (which daughter had received and wouldn't wear)and decorated with some dots of leftover fabric paint. Et voila - fishies!
PS - I like your new background. I just started Canterbury Tales!
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I reread Northanger Abbey recently and I had to laugh at how spot on Jane Austen was - things really haven't changed. The heroine, Catherine Morland, discovers soap and water at the end of adolescence
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You can't get anything other than wash mitts here in France - gants (gloves) - and when we first came, my dear old Mum wouldn't use one. Fortunately, she was a frugal old soul and had lots of old towels that she cut up to make herself a flannel or two.
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