Yucky Mildew and other stuff...

My front living room closet has a leak in it that has been there since we moved in. I thought it had been fixed or magically went away or something, but I hadn't opened the door for about 3-4 months, and I got in there the other day and all of my scrap fabrics and remnants I had bought and put away for another time had gotten wet and mildewed... :( This made me sad. But this gave me a chance to tell everyone about my laundry soap!!! I make it myself, and it started from a recipe out of the Reader's Digest "Homemade" Book, and it's kinda starting to evolve. Here's what it is now:

1/2 cup baking soda
1/2 cup soap flakes ( I use ivory right now, but thinking about changing... maybe safeguard)

1/2 cup color safe bleach

1/4 cup borax
1/4 cup washing soda

You use 1/4 cup of the mixture in a load. I make up a huge batch at one time, and store it in a rubbermaid type container (the shoebox size, but wanting to move up in size).

I also use liquid fabric softener in the wash, as I line dry all of our clothes now (unless I need something in a hurry, because I don't plan ahead enough yet) Wanting to try vinegar, but don't want my clothes to smell like that...

I washed my mildewed yucky fabrics and other things in this, and I only had 3-4 pieces, that looked like they were probably stained before hand, that I had to throw away, and there's still a few more that I will probably have to throw away most of it, but there was 3-4 yards there, and some of its still ok, so I'll wait till I can save the ok parts.


I'm really excited because we discovered in all of the remnants a piece of lovely sage green colored fabric with a print on it similar to a paisley. Theres probably about 2-3 yards of it, and I wrapped it around myself and there's enough for a skirt!!! Now I just have to find a pattern, and get new sewing machine needles (I keep breaking mine, as I'm more daring than my sewing machine...)

P.S. BTW, I've started another blog for the personal story stuff, so that this one can be completely homesteading/homemaking related. It can be found at http://www.farmgirlsdreams.blogspot.com/ Just thought I'd let you know...