Today's The Day (Washing My 2nd Quilt)

A few weeks ago, I mentioned the fate of my second quilt: It was laying on the bed when we had our master bathroom rennovated.  The contractor (who promised he'd be taking precautions to avoid spreading the mess all over the house) laid various dusty bits and pieces RIGHT ON THE BED! - and just the dust from the work was enough to have me pulling my hair out (in fairness, I shouldn't have left the quilt there, should have covered all with sheets or something... )

Anyway - Stephen and I took the quilt outside and beat it - got a lot of grit and dust out of it, but the fact is, it's still not "clean enough" to suit me.

To complicate things, Miss Laka (my blue and gold macaw) nipped a smallish hole when the quilt was quite new - a thin slash as if done with a knife or scissors.  So laundering this quilt is something I have not been looking forward to.

But I've procrastinated on this since March, and it's time to get over it.

Looking at the tear, thought about patching it before washing, but then decided to just put it in "as-is" and I'll patch afterward. I think there might be a bit of fraying, but there probably would be under any patch I'd put on.  No - I'm going to wash it without the patch and then see how it comes out.

So here it goes -  in the machine and a little laundry soap thrown on top:

And, with my heart in my throat, I turn the washer on and watch as the water fills and the drum turns:

It's a big quilt - a generous queen-size spread, nearly king-size.

OK... here comes another "life lesson".  I put the quilt in the machine and set the water level for "automatic".  Big mistake there.  I just checked - could hear the slow aggitation in the machine - and found the water was too high - and there's a small puddle on the floor next to the washer - EEEEK!

So I paused the machine and pushed "spin" to get the tub to empty. Once the spinning is done and the water is out, I'll mop up and start over - this time set the water level to "medium" or maybe "medium-high".  And you can bet I'll be watching it like a hawk.

Oh... this is all way more interesting than it needs to be....