We actually had prepared test swatches (white cotton sheets, with ketchup, mustard, red wine, turmeric, coffee, chocolate, and soy sauce) that people could play with to choose their detergent and machine combination to defeat the stains.
Unfortunately, we forgot to set them out, but Greg, Bob, Roger, Don, Terry, Scott, and Nate rose to the challenge to wash the (then five-day old--ew!) swatches.
In particular, we had a sheet for Toggleswitch that we had used while icing doughnuts with a turkey baster. Gosh, that one was a mess!
Loading all those dishtowel-sized white swatches in with the black sheet produced marginal results, even with the Live Water action. Between the fugitive dyes from the black sheet and the yellow of the turmeric and mustard, the Frigidaire produced results that would have pissed off Miss Joy Weis.
As a bonus, it tied the whole thing into a giant rope. We could have, if the swatches had been clean, gone straight to the dryer with it.
Austin - that model 66 was Terry's, we were getting ready to go to FedEx - you can't see my "pile" of vacuums & parts on the other side of the patio. Terry had two or three boxes and I had seven! Save me a bed in the booby-hatch, Rosie, I'm coming!
I've been very busy lately and can hardly keep up with the interesting threads on this site. I'm glad I found the time now to watch the pictures and read the comments. What a wonderful event and what beautiful pictures. Thank you all for sharing. Tucson is so far away from here, but you really made it a bit closer with sharing the pictures. Yay for wash-ins!
So all of that white flaky mess on the black sheet came from just 3 people decorating? Somehow I find that hard to believe and that there were MANY more involved...LOL. David, your Bob-load comment had me ROARING! I guess with the sheer volume, it could be considered a 'Bob-load' in these circumstances.
On a more serious note, it's interesting how the Unimatic which cleans amazingly under normal circumstances (only machine that could remove those strange dark spots I had on my shirts a while back), loses its effectiveness immediately after the load becomes tangled. I'm assuming the sheet(s) were loaded correctly? I still think it's strange because I've done sheets all the time in my machine without any problem, and they come clean. Well, at least I *think* they come clean. Then again, I've never dealt with the 'donut icing' problem either, ha!
Maybe you guys would have had better luck with the Unimatic by pre-treating with this?
Thank for the "hot" tip Austin. All those clothes I have donated to charity and the ones I bought before I noticed, can be saved. With bright men like you Austin, the world will be a better place for us to live.
Kelly