Wood or Plastic?

I think of myself as always opting for natural products, natural materials, natural ingredients.  Take fiber for example.  I love the natural fibers - wool, mohair, silk, cotton, linen.   For a kitchen towel I will almost always go with a cotton/linen blend, cotton being my second choice.  For sheets I will always prefer linen.  For t-shirts I am sure to pick 100% cotton.  But, of course, that's not what I always choose.  There are times when a fun and funky eyelash yarn in polyester and acrylic is absolutely perfect.  So while I always lean in the direction of natural, that is not always my choice.

This brings me to clothespins.  I have two clotheslines - one outside our dye shed and the other behind the studio.  Both have been installed or had the line replaced recently.  With a new clothesline (mine are green plastic covered cord), of course you need new clothespins.  On one of my husband's trips to the store, I asked him to pick me up some clothespins.  "Get a selection" I said.  And he did.

These are the ones I was really looking for.  No spring, no parts to come apart, just good old fashioned wooden clothespins.  Bad idea.  I don't know that I have ever actually used this kind of clothespin before but they are better suited as the base for a Christmas ornament that very small children make for their parents in pre-school.  They are amazingly hard on anything you are trying to hang.  Maybe they would work OK on blue jeans or heavy work shirts but I could see disaster coming when I tried to hang my linen sheets on the line.  These have been relegated to a plastic box in the dye shed.  I know right where they are so when my grandchildren want to make Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer we are good to go.

Here are my other two options.  Big clunky plastic abominations or standard spring clip wooden clothespins.  Well, now.... wait a second.  The plastic ones are bright and clean and smooth and almost twice the size of the wooden clips.  They are definitely worth a try.  So I tried them.

Turns out I love the plastic clothespins.  They don't get grungy looking as quickly as the wooden ones do.  They don't come apart as easily as the wooden ones do.  They feel lighter in my hand and more secure on the clothesline.  Yes, I love the plastic ones!  In this case plastic wins over wood.