Description
- GOTS Organic Wool
- Needle Punched
- Highly Water Resistant
- 1/4″ thick
- optional Elastic Straps to Size
Protect your mattress with an organic wool puddle pad. Because the wool fibers have been twisted around each other so tightly in the needle punching process, this felt will stop most spills. Even water beading on top will resist being rubbed in.
This is an excellent resource for parents with babies’ spit up, young children’s night accidents, children’s sickness. If you have night sweats, bringing this layer of wool close to your body will help with your temperature regulation as well as keeping your mattress white and clean. Drinks in bed will now be much less of a problem than they once were. With this wool puddle pad, adult activities will be now be kept between you and your partner instead of being shared with your mattress.
If you would like elastic straps, please let us know how deep is the mattress that will belong to this puddle pad in the Mattress Depth dropdown box above.
This wool felt is about 1 lb. of wool per square yard of fabric. It comes with its own warranty.
DIY Steps
This wool puddle pad is the same material as our finished product, but this product is unfinished. While the cost of this product is mostly in the wool itself, you do save yourself the labor costs of serging and attaching the straps. To see the finished product, click here.
- Trim down the length from 90″
- Cut and attach the elastic straps
- Serge the edges
PUDDLE PAD
- Trim down the length from 90″.
- Cut and attach the elastic straps.
- Serge the edges.
LANOLIZING
If you desire more spill protection than the wool felt provides, you may lanolize your puddle pad. The wool felt on its own will protect against many spills, but it does clean up easier if it is lanolized. This is not a necessary step. You will find lanolin in most box stores in the baby bottle aisle.
Lanolin is also known as wool wax. It is the oil the sheep produces to water proof its fibers while it is wearing them. The washing of the wool removes the lanolin along will the vegetation and dirt. It is not commercially possible to leave the lanolin on the wool, however some factories do salvage the lanolin at the expense of the wool. We can join them happily together again, both in their clean state.
- Before bedtime or sometime when the bathtub will be free for quite a few hours, fill a bowl with hot water or a jar with a lid.
- Add in 1-3 tablespoons of lanolin and stir or shake until the water gets cloudy or the lanolin dissolves. You may add in some wool appropriate soap to help the process along.
- Fill your bathtub (preferably not your washing machine tub), with tepid water.
- Soak your puddle pad in the tub. This project is easiest with more water rather than less water.
- Throw in a little wool wash to increase the absorbency of the pad.
- When the lanolin water is the same temperature as the tub water, pour it in and swish it around. Make sure the water gets inbetween the folds of fabric.
- Let it sit overnight.
- Squeeze extra water out and let the spin cycle of your washing machine wring the rest out.
- Lay flat or line dry.
Should your wool puddle pad become soiled and need to be washed, you may HAND WASH it gently. Vinegar or hydrogen peroxide may also be used for sanitizing or spot cleaning.
Shrinking is caused in part by the rubbing of the fibers against each other. As the fibers are rubbed against each other, they intertwine, shortening the length of the wool fiber. Avoid over agitating the wool. Avoid using soap unless necessary. Strong soaps will raise the PH of the wool and cause it to felt easily. Drastic heat changes in the water will also cause the wool to felt.
WASHING DIRECTIONS
- Let your wool felt float, submerged in a tub full of tepid water.
- Push it down and around until no bubbles appear.
- Let it sit. As it sits, you will see the dust being released and floating on the surface of the water. If you choose to choose a soap, use a wool soap such as Eucalan.
- Drain water and gently squeeze out water of wool.
- Fill tub again to rinse. Rinse by letting it sit again for half an hour.
- Squeeze and rinse again if necessary.
- Drain water and press out the extra water in the felt. You may use the centrifugal force of the spin cycle in your washing machine to wring extra water out.
- Hang up or ideally lay flat to dry in the sun to dry. Sunlight is a natural sanitizer. Do not use an automatic dryer as it will mat the wool.
After it has dried for a day or so, you should have a fresh smelling wool puddle pad ready to use.
CAUTION
While the wool felt is pretty stable, it can be shrunk and warped out of size fairly easily. Here are two pictures of a 16″ x 16″ piece I threw in my top loading washing machine. Granted, the machine had an excellent agitator, however I did not use any soap or dry the piece in the dryer.
