Notes from the hallway
Short pieces on boots, sizes and the seasonal scramble. Everything here traces back to a measured foot or a manufacturer's own chart.
10 August 2026Should winter boots be a size bigger?Yes, roughly one size, and there is nothing mystical about it: the extra room is for a wool sock and five months of growing. Here is the arithmetic.
10 August 2026Do Kuoma boots run big?Wide, yes. Long, no. The famous roominess is in the width; the length runs exact, and Kuoma publishes the millimetres to prove it.
10 August 2026How to measure kids' feet at homePaper, a wall, a pen, an evening. Two minutes per child, three times a year, and you never guess at a shoe shelf again.
10 August 2026Why kids size charts disagreeLine up four size charts and you get four answers for the same foot. None of them are lying; they are measuring different things.
12 August 2026Selling outgrown kids' clothesThree piles: save for the sibling, give away, sell. The sorting is the hard part; the selling goes fast once you accept that only some of it holds value.
12 August 2026Labeling kids' clothes for preschoolThe preschool asks for a name in everything, and they mean it: the lost-and-found box is where unmarked mittens go to disappear. Here is what survives the wash, and what it costs.12 August 2026Washing a snowsuit without ruining itWash it rarely, wash it right, and the same overall does two winters and two kids. The machine is not the danger; the fabric softener is.
12 August 2026Starting preschool: the clothes that actually get usedThe store list is long; the hallway list is short. What actually needs to hang in the locker on the first morning, in which sizes, and what runs out by Wednesday.
12 August 2026Buy the winter clothes in AugustThe snowsuits are in stores now and the popular sizes are gone by October. The only hard part is buying for the child of January instead of the child in the fitting room.12 August 2026Wool and layers: dressing kids for coldThree layers, each with one job, and the right size for each. The warmth is not in the fabric, it is in the air the layers trap.12 August 2026How fast do kids' feet grow?A toddler moves a shoe size roughly every four months, a six-year-old every eight. Round numbers, population averages, and still the most useful thing to know at the shoe shelf.