new covers stocking

Thursday Aug 20 at noon, new PUL print covers.


A boyish space print with funny little aliens floating amid lime stars.

The mushroom print I love so much, darling little 'shrooms and a lively dose of red.


Mod robots are hidden in the interlocking squares of this red - white - blue print.

And last but not least, MOM designs' pink and chocolate chickadees.

Front snap and side snap in each print. Limited quantities, so get yours while the gettin' is good.

Advance notice, just for you :)

It's back to school time here in Saint Louis; the kids started today. Even my "little big kid," as she calls herself, is starting preschool this year.
I've been doing some studying myself. Looking at customer suggestions, looking to improve products and streamline how they are made. I'd like to move out the current stock of Solo Flyer AI2s and Freesize Fitteds to make room for the new, coming in September. So this is just a little heads up that I'll be lowering prices on these in conjuction with my stocking this Thursday. If you buy between now and then and put "fishnoodles blog" in the memo field, I'll manually reduce the price of the Solo Flyers to $18.50 [for prints!] and $14.oo for the Freesize Fitteds [for bamboo fitteds!]. Just wanted to give my readers first shot. It's okay if you tell a friend, too.

Coming storm, August 12

Everyone's gonna be mad at me. I just stocked a big batch of print Solo Flyers. I can pretty much guarantee that whichever size/print/style combination you want, it's not going to be there. Okay, I'm kidding. A little...because I'm sure I'm going to hear from someone about it. You see, I had just so much of some popular prints left, so I cut the sizes I could, and tried to evenly distribute the styles between front and side snap. But that meant only 4 mediums, and all of them oogas. See what I mean? If you want to take a look, the listing is here, stocking 8/12. That's the last of these prints so if you do see something you want, snag it because it won't appear again.
If you do stop by, you'll notice my shop got a great new logo redesign. When he first saw it, my 9 year old son, all boy, who doesn't use words such as "love", said "it's...it's...I can't say it!" "What?" I asked, "you can tell me," thinking it was something awful. "It's the c-word." I quickly started thinking of any forbidden c-words he might know, eyebrows raised: "What?!?" Ashamed, he tells me, "it's...cute!" Oh! I could not ask for better.

Bring the heat!

...just kidding, it's been a cool summer and even though the tomatoes are just sitting there like green rocks, not ripening, I don't *really* want to bring the heat. This is just a little heads up ~ Cool Flames covers stocking August 6th. These are the Wrapper (side snap) style.


Cool Flames Wrapper - poly print PUL


Cool Flames Wrapper (back view)

Shop for your size here: Small Medium Large
Good for August, no?

'Tis the season of the cucumber around here. Mr. Fishnoodle asked me to plant more cukes this year so he could make pickles. [I grow the veggies, he processes them; that's our system] Well! You know those long, English type they sell shrink-wrapped in the grocery store? We've got loads of them. Last weekend we'd accumulated about 100 in the fridge, and so we pulled them all out for the pickle-making session. Now we know why they are shrink-wrapped. Some were rubbery, some fuzzy - back they went to the compost from whence they came. The husband turned the good ones into 7 quarts and 14 pints of homemade, organic, bread-and-butter pickles. Quite an achievement that we'll enjoy all winter.
As for me, I've been mixing it up with color that's not exactly pickle-green. Solid color Snappers stocking Thursday at noon, with colorways mostly from nature and a few from highly unnatural cupcakes, just for fun.

something squishy this way comes...

Just back, restored and refreshed from our annual summer vacation at Summer Haven. This is a magical place on Lake Michigan I've visited every year since I was a little girl. I have family in the area - one uncle is a captain who does sailing charters.

Just before and after the trip I was sewing like a madwoman, determined to finally bring some long-gestating ideas to life. The ideas started when another diaper maker asked me to review her website. Like me, she makes covers and all-in-ones. "You need something to put in the covers," I suggested, "maybe some prefolds." I later got to thinking I should really take my own advice.

I had purchased a roll of bamboo velour and another of fleece for this venture and it was still sitting there, looking reproachfully at me. So I got to work on my three ideas. The first is a sort of prefold-fitted hybrid I call the "flipfold." It folds into different sizes, like origami. "You should patent that!" said my dear husband (he's so supportive!). And maybe eventually I will...this one is not ready for prime time yet.

The second idea was for a really plush bamboo prefold, with Zorb in the center. The point of Zorb is to move moisture quickly. Often my babies' diapers would be sopping wet in the front and dry in the back, so my thinking was that if the pee could be better distributed, it would make for fewer leaks. This one, the AbZORBent prefold, is done and stocked.

The third idea was to bring back the Fishnoodles Fitted and make it better. The problem with multi-size fitteds is that you end up with a heavy array of snaps, and - speaking from the maker's point of view - god forbid you set a snap wrong and waste all that expensive fabric and effort. So, I decided to get rid of the snaps and make it a fold-to-fit type diaper with maximum adjustibility. I also wanted to make the fabric wrap at the legs, since soft leg openings are something mamas often look for.

I've finished the first of these new Freesize Fitteds and have them stocked for next Monday.

So that's the something squishy...the absorbent pieces to complement the covers. Hope you are having a lovely summer!

What's in a label (and why mine may be wrong)

My garment label reads: "fishnoodles made in USA." Until recently, I did not know that "made in USA" means that the garment is sewn in the US [check; mine are] AND that the fabric was also milled in the US [Oh, really? Doh!]. I have always purchased from US sellers but did not know to ask and have not kept any records about where the fabrics were actually milled. But beyond legalities, why should this matter to anyone?

In 1989 and 1990 I had the opportunity to travel in East Germany and Poland, just before and after the fall of the Wall. The environmental destruction we saw was heartbreaking - forests of dead trees, polluted unswimmable rivers and lakes.

Now think about China: remember how some athletes refused to participate in the Beijing Olympics due to the severe air pollution? Textile production has the potential to be a very polluting undertaking. I have no way of knowing if factories in "emerging markets" (where 60% of the world's fabrics come from; 40% from China) are following good environmental and labor safety practices - though we have reports of situations such as rivers running red with dumped dyes. But I do know that in the US we have labor laws, human rights laws, a Clean Air Act and a Clean Water Act.

As my business grows, I want it to grow better, not just bigger. So I've just ordered new organic cotton and bamboo fabrics for my Solo Flyer AIOs from a mill in the USA.

Buying from US sources is something I'll be looking at with every future step of fishnoodles. Sure, imported fabric is cheaper. But I didn't get into cloth diapers just to save money (over buying disposables) -- thinking a few generations ahead matters too. How sad will today's Chinese children feel as adults, when they see what has become of their land in its rapid industrialization?