Old Nasty Pillow Solution

A few weeks ago some of the families in the neighborhood started hanging all this wool out on clothes lines or on tarps outside their homes for drying.  For two or three days they would hang it out or spread it out for the day and take it in for the night. 

Here you can actually see the amount of wool and stuffing by the size of their piles.  The wool was taken down from the clothes lines you see in this picture above.  Well, anyway, we were curious as to what they were doing so one evening when the kids were outside playing I went over and asked.  At that time, I found a group of ladies sitting on the sidewalk on their tarp and sewing a thin mattress together. 

I asked them to explain this process and they said that about every five years they freshen up their pillows and mattress pads by taking out all the stuffing (either wool or polyester or cotton) and washing it clean.  Then they spread it out or hang it out to dry for before sewing it back into a pillow or mattress pad. 

I was of course very impressed by both the standard of cleanliness as well as their thriftiness.  Rather then let their pillows get nasty or just throwing them out and buying a new one, they went through all this effort of making something new again. I think I might try this with our pillows next spring.  What a great example of taking care of what you have.