Disana Wool Leggings Review and GIVEAWAY! Sponsored by Little Spruce Organics

 

By now maybe you're starting to pick up on the fact that I LOVE WOOL!  If you don't know much about it, then please check out my guide to cloth diapering with wool.  The next giveaway in the wool extravaganza has been brought to you by the fantastic store, Little Spruce Organics.  I love this store almost as much as I love wool!  Such a unique selection of items made from natural materials, and phenomenal customer service.  If you'd like to learn more about Little Spruce Organics, you can check out my review of their store and some of their products here, or just go see for yourself!

Disana leggings are awesome.  We purchased three pairs of these last fall, and I can't wait to use them again this fall and winter.  They are comfy, cozy, and nice and stretchy.  Made of 100% organic virgin merino wool, the leggings are long lasting and adorable.  These photos were taken today, with one of the three pairs we wore multiple times per week all last fall and winter.  With a wash and shave they look brand new!  The sweater happens to be Disana as well, and is sold by Little Spruce Organics too!

What do I love about Disana leggings?  Well, besides how comfy they are, they have a unique feature in their stretchiness.  They are the only thing I've found that can fit comfortably and easily over the thickest of the thick wool soakers and covers.  They themselves are designed to be used only as daytime covers between frequent changes, but I ended up only washing them with some wool wash containing lanolin and leaving it at that.  (Don't worry, part two of my diapering with wool guide will be out in another week or so with everything you need to know about wool care!)

What I DID use them for is to wear over all of my summer wool.  Got thick Sustainablebabyish covers that are typically worn alone?  THESE will fit over them!  Interlock, knits...you name it.  Why does this rule?  Because I found soakers and covers to be a little easier to lanolize than longies.  So I could save my pricier longies for wearing out and about, and I was able to get so much more use out of all of our soakers and covers by wearing them all winter long under the Disana leggings. 

In all of these photos, we got out the old diapers for demo, and she's wearing an XL Sustainablebabyish OBF diaper, a LG Sustainablebabyish cover and Disana leggings sized 98/104 (2-3yrs).  They all fit last fall/winter as well, and the leggings we had cuffed back then.  She's currently 39 inches tall and 35.5 lbs.  Last fall she was 36.5 inches tall and 32 lbs. 



Fit over XL fitted diaper and
large sustainablebabyish cover

Another great feature is with the leggings design they are easily cuffable, so that means it's easy to get two winters out of them.  Not only are you saving money buying fewer longies and getting more out of your summer wool, but you don't need to buy more Disana leggings the next year either! 

They also happen to come in a gorgeous rainbow of beautiful, vibrant colors.  It is worth mentioning that these leggings do pill a little more than most wool we owned, so be prepared to shave them.  I will also say when they first arrived they were not as squishy as they have since become. After giving them their initial bath, I soaked them in some Mrs. Meyers fabric softener (you could use Ecover too) and after two washes and soaks they were super soft!  (Confused about "shaving" and soaking... just wait for part two of my wool guide!)  We ended up using them mostly around the house at home and for bedtime, but she still wore these out as well plenty of times.  When we lost power during hurricane Sandy for 9 days and our house's temperature inside got down into the low 50's, I was so grateful for these leggings! 

Little Spruce Organics is providing a pair of these fabulous 100% organic wool leggings in YOUR CHOICE of colors and size from their IN STOCK collection.  When the contest is over, the lucky winner can check out their site to find what's in stock, and they just recently got a shipment in so they have just about everything.  To enter, see the rafflecopter box below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Guest Post: One Mom's Path to Cloth Diapering and Love of Wool

The woman I refer to as "my wool guru," Corrie Palmer, has written a wonderful narrative about how she got started cloth diapering, and then ultimately using wool.  It was Angela's creations from Wild Coconut Wear (check out our Wild Coconut Wear giveaway TOMORROW!) that was the start of Corrie's love of wool, and the solution to her leaky diapers.  Let me tell you, Corrie knows her wool!  She introduced me to a number of brands, and you can see some of her coveted collection here on her beautiful daughter.

By Corrie Palmer:

The first time I ever saw a modern day cloth diaper was about three years ago. One of my friends had posted a photo of her newborn baby boy on Facebook in a tiny little diaper with a big G on his bottom. It was the cutest little baby bottom in a diaper I had ever seen! Day after day, she kept posting these adorable photos of her little guy in all these brightly colored diapers. I think I was secretly jealous of her baby’s bottom!

My third daughter was wearing disposable diapers at the time. Her diapers were NOT that cute. Functional, yes. Fashionable? Not really. Wasteful? Definitely.

I asked my friend about all these cloth diapers she used and she invited me over to her house for a play date with other local cloth diapering mom’s in our circle. I had no idea what I was about to get myself into! You see, it wasn’t just a play date, I later found out. It was a “convert this mama to cloth” party. And it worked! They all brought over their favorite diapers for me to try on my daughter. I was overwhelmed by the colors and styles and even bought a few while I was there. And that’s how my obsession started.

Within a month, I had a full daytime diaper stash. I had a couple of this brand, a couple of that, one minky (ooh, I loved the purple minky!) Washing and folding laundry was finally fun too. Sometimes I wouldn’t even put them away because they were so pretty to look at. I also started taking pictures… of diapers. My family now thought I was crazy.

In the beginning, we only used our cloth diapers around the house. They seemed to leak when my daughter would sit down after wetting them and at least once a day, she would wet on my husband’s lap. He wasn’t very happy about these new diapers and refused to use them when he changed her. We tried using them a few times on short errands but she would end up wetting them as soon as we pulled out of the driveway. I was getting really tired of washing the car seat cover too. I almost gave up cloth diapers because I didn’t understand how having to deal with accidents was worth the investment. Then a bigger part of me knew I should keep trying, and if I wanted to completely get rid of the disposable diapers, I would need to find a solution to these constant leaks. This meant trying more diapers.


I bought a used fitted diaper and was so impressed by how absorbent it was. I needed more! I also needed something to cover that diaper with so I grabbed a few PUL covers too. They were nice, but she started complaining of being hot. Summer in Texas is hot when you’re naked, but even more so when wrapped in plastic. The search continued for a better diaper cover and then I read something about wool. At first I had a hard time picturing myself dressing my daughter in sweater-pants (as my husband called them) in the middle of our 100 + degree summer. I had nothing to lose at this point, so I bought a little pair of wool pants to try out.

And she cried. She was not having it. It was scratchy and itchy and “ugg-a-lee”. My poor girl. She would swat at her legs like I stuck her in a fire ant bed. This was not good. I tried a few knit covers and she hated those too. I tried shorties. I tried more longies. In fact, each time the mailman delivered a package, she knew what was coming next. Me chasing her through the house saying “look at your pretty new woolies!” I was beginning to lose hope so we kept using the PUL diapers until I found wool that she would wear without crying. I felt like crying too, because I saw all these photos online of little ones wearing wool and they looked so happy!

One day, I was on Diaperswappers and found a pair of shorties that were in my price range, so I got them. They were interlock wool. I hadn’t tried interlock yet and was actually really scared to. The picture made them look like felt. You know, the stuff you can craft with? Really thick felt. Well, that’s what it was… felted wool. It arrived, and to my surprise, it was buttery soft. And she wore them! I may have even done a happy dance.

The first pair of wool that she would wear and not cry, was made by Wild Child Woolies. (She has since changed the name of her company to Wild Coconut Wear.) But these shorts were really amazing. They were soft, fuzzy and stretchy and just perfect. And they worked just as promised, with that fitted diaper I had. The best part of all, was that she soaked that diaper and her wool shorts did not leak. Not one single bit.

And in a last ditch effort for a pair of beautiful “sweater pants” I decided to finally try out a pair of knit longies from Sustainablebabyish. When they arrived, just as I expected, she ran to her room crying. But let me tell you, I have never felt wool as soft and silky and dreamy as these little pants. I slipped my arm up a leg hole to see how they felt on my skin and all I could say was “Oh my goodness, these are amazing.” We fought through the tears of trying them on, but after a minute or two, she stopped. She kept the pants on and did not act like she had prickly bugs eating her. I should have just started out with these we would have avoided all that distress.

Slowly I began selling those other colorful synthetic diapers and replacing them with more fitteds and wool. Within a couple months, I had interlock wool from Twee Baby, Rainbow Waters, Bumby, Little Green Honu, Sproutling Love, Guerilla Fluff and Woollybottoms. These were all functional, but some of them I just didn’t love as much as others. Some were softer, some were stretchier, some had prettier colors to chose from, some fit better than others. But in the end, we successfully found a cloth diapering solution and my husband no longer worried about our daughter leaking on his lap.

LuLu's Nest Felt Hair Clips

I had a really hard time finding something to hold my daughter's hair back that wasn't a giant bow, or an oversized barrette that took up half her head.  I'm not a fan of super girly things, so I wanted to find something unique for my daughter.  That's when I found LuLu's Nest on Etsy.  At 1.25 inches long, the small clip was sized just right for my daughter when she was tiny and had very fine hair.  The small clip doesn't hold a lot of hair, but my daughter's hair was so fine that it worked perfectly.  Now that she's 2.5 and she's bigger (she's larger than many 3 year olds we know) and her hair is thicker, the larger 2 inch size works great. 

Here are a couple of samples of her work, as well as an action shot of my daughter wearing one of the small ones at 20 months.  These clips are unique and adorable, and I can't tell you how many inquiries/compliments we get about them!  They are made of wool felt, with numerous designs and colors to choose from.  They would make an excellent gift as well!

These are very well made and lasted for months of use.  You can find them through the links on the photos above, or at LuLu's Nest on Etsy, and her facebook page.

LooHoo Wool Dryer Balls

I was introduced to dryer balls when I started cloth diapering.  They reduce drying time substantially, they fluff and soften laundry without the use of fabric softener, and they help keep clothing wrinkle free.  This saves time, energy and money.  I didn't like the idea of putting plastic ones in a hot dryer with my clothing, and that's when I discovered wool dryer balls.  Since hearing about them, I have tried 5 different brands.  Two of those brands I still use in circulation, but I have finally found a favorite.  LooHoo Dryer Balls are BY FAR the heaviest of any brand I've ever owned, and this is helpful because it makes them easier to find when unloading laundry.  I also feel like the extra weight helps them bounce around more to do a better job.  A few brands I owned were so light that if they got stuck in a sleeve I didn't think they were doing much of anything.  Even if these find their way into something, which is far less often than other brands, the weight of them still keeps things moving. 

How many dryer balls do you need?  Starting out with 3-4 is fine, but if you generally do large loads of laundry I would say 5-8.  As for the longevity, I've only had my LooHoo dryer balls for 6 months but they still look pretty much new, whereas I've had a few brands that started coming apart by then.  I anticipate having them for a long time.  If you go to their facebook page, they are offering a 20% off good until 2/22/13