Monday: Laundry Day

Ah, Monday. Known for being laundry day. Also being known for being the beginning of the work week... drudgery, back to the grind, hard work begins and fun ends. Yes, I think Monday's got their bad reputations from housewives who for centuries had to lug out laundry and scrub, scrub, scrub all day long. 

Steady progress was being made in the area of laundry in 1940, women were no longer hand cranking the rinse cycle or scrubbing on wash boards, but it was far from the ease that we have today! (And laundry is STILL one of the top things I don't enjoy doing, but how previous generations would relish what we have today!) Here's a brief 15 second clip of a 40's housewife feeding ONE piece of clothing through the rinser... could you imagine doing each piece of clothing in your laundry pile? I've got six people who make A LOT of laundry, this most certainly would take all day, I would be more picky about the clothing I allowed to stay in the house!

Most housewives would have to use the kitchen and turn it into a laundry room for the day. I'm sure this effected Monday night's dinner if you weren't careful in scheduling your time! This is one instance, I am grateful for today's technology! My washer and dryer are both new front loaders which have computer chips to detect cycles and can even detect problems with the unit! If for some reason either unit should fail to work, I can call a telephone number, put the phone to the washer, push a selected button pattern and then it will beep a certain way, letting the automated system on the phone tell me what the issue is with the unit! Now, that must have been such a far out, space age idea for these ladies! (Honestly, it still really is with me!)

Saturday, I posted about making my own homemade detergent and how I was going to give it the ultimate challenge.... my son's baseball pants! These would have to rank as the hardest thing to wash in our house. Georgia red clay can take it's toll on clothing... don't believe me? Well, just visit any gift shop in Atlanta, and you'll find the "Georgia Red Clay Shirt". This shirt isn't dyed, it's color is made up of 100% GA Red Clay!

 I took a good amount of pictures so you could see how it all came out. You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Here are his pants after the game, BEFORE washing:

Thankfully no sliding today, so it made my job a bit easier. ;P Close up image of the ground in dirt:

I read also how the blue bottle of Dawn dish detergent works as a great spot treater. As I would have normally pre-treated these stains, I decided to do spot treat the left side with Fels-Naptha, and the right side with Dawn.

So, how did it come out? You be the judge!

There was still some dirt on the side that I used the Dawn as a spot treater as shown in the pic below. I think I'll just use the Fels-Naptha as a spot treater (which was super easy to do, just spray with water, rub the bar on the spot, let sit for minute, toss in wash)

Overall, I am very impressed with my new detergent (thankfully since the recipe makes 10 gallons!) 

I hope all of these photo's help you decide whether or not to try out the recipe for yourself. I know it's easy to hear people rave over things, but I always like to see results before investing a bunch of time and energy into something. If you try out this recipe, be sure to let me know what you think!

Back to laundering~

Angela