Monday Wash Day: Whites

For the first half of my marriage Monday was laundry day.  Every batch of sorted dirty clothes was washed, dried, folded and put away on Monday.  Often the last batch was folded during Perry Mason (now if that doesn't date me, wow!).  How I dread the thought. 

Later and through my working years I discovered that my mother taught me, by example, a tradition that I didn't have to keep.
I freed myself from laundry day and learned to put a batch of washing in each morning and be done with it.  Of course, the down side is the occasional forgetting to put the clothes in the dryer and fold and put away.  They don't mildew overnight, fortunately, and all is not lost.

Monday is whites day so I want to give a little tip on washing pillows since they are white.  If  you haven't viewed Martha Stewart's method of whitening pillows look it up on Pinterest. There are several versions of pillow washing, but they all get their start from Martha.  It works and pillows come out white and odor free. 

The basic formula:

• One cup laundry detergent
• One cup Arm and Hammer Washing Soda
• One-half cup Borax
• One cup dry dish washer detergent
• One cup bleach

Soak in the hottest water available (I add a large pan full of boiling water from the sink.)  for 2 hours.  Drain and run through a wash cycle without more soap.

One little tip:  soak for one hour then turn the pillows upside down and soak another hour to cover the entire surface.

 I need to try the procedure without the bleach for deodorizing pillowcases, now.  I noticed that oily hair smell coming through the supposedly laundered pillow cases.  That is another day.

Martha falls short on one important point.  Laundering pillows leads to knotted up filling.  The pillow never is the same again. 

This brings up my second tip: I have devised a way to solve that problem.  Take a large eyed needle, thread it with heavy white thread or crochet cotton and put a big finger knot on the end.  Sew through the pillow in a grid pattern about 4 inches across covering the whole area.  Knot the end of the thread by passing the thread back through the last stitch a couple of times leaving a longer tail.  Be sure to use loosely formed stitches so the pillow has room to expand during drying.  

Whoa, pretty nails after repotting plants today.

This tip will preserve the integrity of the filler (batting type).  If this seems like too much work, remember that Martha suggests that you launder your pillows twice a year.  How hard can that be every six months?

Drying time is much longer for pillows than for clothing.  Plan to run it through the longest dry cycle two or three times turning them over between cycles to dry the inner side.  

Happy Warsh Day.

Addendum:  On Thursday I continued washing pillows and ran into problem.  One of the pillows puffed up so much it tore the pillow cover all across the pillow in the wash.  I would expect that happening in the dryer.  Batting was leaking out.  

This has never happened before.  It was a newer pillow that fits inside my husband's special therapeutic pillow along side a memory foam inset.  The foam washed okay and is drying out of the dryer, but this half will have to be mended.  Oops.  Instead of layers of batting type fill it has chopped up batting pieces.  I guess it expands more.

Don't forget to sew it loosely before laundering. (which I did, but not loosely enough)

My old, old pillow didn't do that.  The old cover fabric in it held up fine.  

Its a little bumpy, but not bright yellow anymore. 

Wash On.