Cold fall weather/mild winter weather

The fall is getting colder, and I took out the wool for the first time this week. Fall and spring are onion seasons. You layer up like an onion, and vary the middle layer depending on how cold and moisty it is. When it gets too cold to just put on a jacket and shoes, this is a good way to dress.

First layer: thin wool underwear and thin wool socks. 

On a budget? Wool is expensive. If you are planning on only using it for a short periode of time, like on vacation, and don't want to invest in wool underwear, you can use cotton underwear in stead. It is not as warm and gets cold when you get wet, so it is important to make shure the kids are dry and not stay out for a very long time.

Second layer (if needed): thick wool. This Layer is knitted with thicker wool than the wool underwear. It has more air pockets, and therefore it keeps the body heat better than the thin wool.The thin wool is mostly bought in the store, but a lot of the thick wool I have knitted Myself. The ones in the picture are actually bought in the store. The thinner wool is always bought in the store. It is to thin to knit by hand, and also, since it is the innerlayer, it's important that it doesn't itch.

On a budget? If you are only planning on using the clothes for a short periode of time, you can use fleece in stead as a second layer. It's cheaper! But not as good.

Third layer: thin, water resistant and windproof jacket and pants, or playsuit.

Water resistant shoes or rain boots.

Is it raining or is it very wet outside? Waterproof rain suit...

thicker wool socks (if it's cold) and rain boots.

Also mittons and a hat. I will write about these later.

Why wool?

Wool can let out and absorb moist to cool down or warm up the body. You get warm quickly, but not overheated, because of the unique breathing quality. Clothes made from wool has millions of small airpockets that holds your bodyheat close to your body. Thicker wool will have more air pockets than thin wool, and will therefor be warmer. Think of a thermos or a thermo cup. It has two metal wall with air in between. It is not the metal that keeps the coffee warm, it's the insulating layer of air in between. Two layers of metal on top of each other would not at all do the same job. But the most important reason to wear wool is that it keeps you warm even if you get wet. When you are playing and sitting in the snow for hours, or if it's raining, kids will become wet. When you get wet, you get cold. Wool absorbs 35% of it's own weight before it feels wet, and it also generates heat when it absorbs water.
When it gets cold, my kids usually have a thin layer of wool closest to the body, under the normal clothes. They wear this both inside the house and outside. When they go outside, we usually take off the cotton pants and shirt, and put on more wool and/or a suit, depending on the weather. This is the thin wool underwear that is used under the clothes. Pictures from pierre robert.

And this is my little one in wool underwear.

This is the first post in this blog that I started mainly for you, Lindsay ;) My sister in law, who lives in Kansas, wanted me to make a mini series of tuturials on how to dress the kids when it's cold outside. I live in Norway, and I know that she has many times seen the pictures of us out in the snow, thinking we are crazy.  For example, during the wintertime we can stay out for hours doing winter activities, like sliding down hills, go skiing, play in the snow, and we very often pack lunch or grill hot dogs over the fire and eat outside in the woods. In daycare children are outside for hours every day, in school they are outside in the recesses and also have activity days outside. Where we live, the temperatures during the wintertime can vary between +10 degrees celcius and -20 degrees celcius. It is very important to know how to dress the kids so that they won't get cold or wet.
I'm not really sure how I am going to do this, since I don't really know what is interesting for people to know, and also living in Norway these are just stuff that one knows. By looking out the window and at the thermometer, I just know if we need one or two layers of wool, if we need the thick or thin wool, the thick or thin hat, the thin rainproof suit or the thick, warm suit. It's just difficult to say how we dress the kids, because there are just so many options. So I'm thinking I would categorize the post by weather/temperature, and also do posts on hands, feet and head and the best material ever; wool, deserves a post of it's own.

(Old pictures. We don't have snow here just yet ;)