At the end of every laundry comes the inevitable end, drying it. For stingy folks like me, I am not wasting my electricity on a dryer when I have plenty of sunlight and mild dry breezes where I live. At the back of our house near the laundry area are poles that stand from end to end. These are connected with long lines of colorful braided nylon ropes. Meet my handy dandy rainbow clothesline.
Photo: “Clothesline: environmentally friendly clothes dryer” by Peter Blanchard, c/o Flickr. Some Rights Reserved
What I usually do after rinsing clothes is to squeeze excess water out of each item. Afterwards, I would flail each of them to stretch them out and to prevent them from wrinkling, as I do not use fabric conditioners. I would hang each of them, inside out, with a clothespin on each end. Although stretching them would dry them out faster, I hang them loosely to keep their thread quality intact. The distance from one clothespin to the next is about the span of my outstretched index and thumb. This gives the clothes some slack and allows me to hang more in a clothesline.
Although its obvious that the clothespins secure the laundry to the clothesline for better drying, it also prevents them from dropping to the ground and keeping them clean. But you see, aside from keeping them clean and dry, it also prevents them from being stolen by dastardly neighbours and passers-by. Another additional security feature would be to hang clothes according to their type. For an ordinary clothesline, I am inclined to hang linen and towels on the side of the clothesline that is nearest the yard, then the dusters, aprons and skirts. Midway the clothesline are my shirts, polo shirts and sandos – whites before the colored and printed ones. At the very end are the short pants, slacks, jeans and jogging pants.
I have a metal foldaway clothes dryer rack for clothes that needed to be hung in clothes hangers. Blazers, special dresses, fancy pants and skirts use plastic hangers that are arranged in the rack that there is sufficient spaces in between. A rotating clothes rack is reserved for my underwear and socks or my baby’s clothes. These special racks can be placed indoor or even in the garage when it rains or when I need them to dry faster than the usual.
When the clothes are ready for “harvesting”, I start with the ones that I will fold last. That meant getting the linen and towels first so that they settle in the hamper’s bottom. Aprons, dusters, and skirts come next and then the shirts, polos and sandos. Short pants, slacks and jean go in before the underwear and baby clothes. Those that come from the foldaway drying rack is placed on top because they need to be ironed out. After putting away clothes for ironing (which I do when the hamper is full), I start folding baby’s clothes and my undies. The shirts and pants come next. The feminine clothes are folded before the linen and I’m all done.