Living Simply Tips - Re-useable Coffee Filters and Cloth Napkins

I scrunched up my nose as I wiped down our outside table with a rag wondering if the washing machine really could get out all this dirt. It may seem silly, but when we decided to switch from paper towels to rags, I had in my mind images of cute sanitary spills that I could swoop in and wipe up. You know, like the commercials for paper towels. I had temporarily forgotten all the nasty stuff I sometimes wiped up where I was only too happy to throw it away. My generation grew up with this idea of “disposable”. It had somehow never dawned on me that there was another possibility, like washing a rag. 

I’ve been inspired lately by library books I’ve found on re-using materials and items that I, in the past, would have thrown or given away. For example, re-using tee-shirts. You can cut up a tee shirt into squares, sow a border around the edge of the square and ta-da, you have a cloth napkin that’s soft and absorbable.

I also invested a little time and money into a couple of yards of Muslin fabric to make re-useable coffee filters. It was easy. I bought it from the store, washed it and then cut out squares which I use as coffee filters, (see directions below). I love them cause my coffee actually filters better using them.  

If you are a loose-leaf tea drinker, I’ve found a system to make cleaning out the tea leaves easy. Make tea in a teapot, using loose-leaf tea. When you go to pour it, pour it through a mesh colander into your cup. The colander collects the leaves. When you are done, swish some water in the teapot and dump out over/through the colander. Then bring the colander to the trashcan or compost can and turn over and “whack” it on the edge so the leaves fall into the can. Easy clean up!     

Couple of lessons learned – Wash rags separately as its own load, not with your clothes. Wash coffee filters with your darks. I found the muslin picked up dirt etc. if I washed them with the rags.

You can always keep some paper towels for things you find too gross to try and wash out, but you may find as I did that the truly gross items to clean up are a lot less than I thought.  I hope that you too will be inspired to make a switch.

 To make cloth coffee filters:

(Make sure to wash the Muslin cloth before starting the project.)

Take a piece of un-died Muslin cloth and a current coffee filter that fits your coffeemaker. Trace the filter, adding about 1 and 1/2 inch border. (It you want, you can sow around the edges to finish it. I didn’t and they work fine.) When you go to make coffee, wet the cloth filter and place in the coffee maker overlapping the extra cloth around the edges of the basket, tucking the edges under the basket as you place the basket inside the coffeemaker. This keeps it from flopping over into where you put the coffee. Put in the coffee grinds and make coffee. For clean-up, bring filter to trash or compost bin and shake (gently) the coffee grinds out. Then rinse the residue out and put it aside to wash.