Fabric From The Attic

My Grandma calls her 64 grandchildren “Dollface” and other such endearing terms. She also says things like “Fiddley-dee!” When she’s frustrated.

My brother doesn’t like answering machines, he prefers to talk to a real person. In a less than excited tone he left a message today. My grandma prefers people to machines as well. So when my Mom and I listened to my brother’s message today I remembered a message that my grandma once left. It started out, “Well fiddley-dee you’re not there! I was looking for your mamma-honey . . . “

My Mom liked my grandma impersonation and called grandma and told it to her. She said she was “tickled really a lot.” I conveyed the message that I would call grandma in a minute and leave her a special message.

So I made up this little limricky poem and left her this message on her machine:

Well Fiddle E.D. You’re not there! This is Dollface and I wanted to play.

Fiddle E.D. and Dollface went out to the woods to play,

They liked all the leaves and all the tall trees and they went there day after day.

“Fiddle E.D.,” said Dollface, “we should try going out for a swim.”–

They went to the lake and got a nice bake and worked themselves down really slim.

“How ‘bout we try more?” and they started to soar—they were sky diving of course, don’t you know?

“Next we’ll try boatin’ and some good ol’ fun floatin’” and they got all into the sport.

“Summer is here and there’s nothing to fear!” and they sported their fine fancy shorts.

“I’m glad there is sun, this is oh so much fun!” Dollface said as she went for a splash.

“Look how fast I can go! I’m quick, don’t ya know!” And Fiddle E.D. zipped passed zip, zip, zippy.

And so, don’t ya know, we have all this snow—but that’s no cause to make you get miffy.

‘Cuz soon we’ll be out and we’ll be shoutin’ about, and our times will be fun, hot, and spiffy.

I had the coolest new red shirt. I lie. It was a hand-me-down. Want to know why it was a hand-me-down? After I wore it the first time my white under shirt was very pink in some places. (No wonder they wanted to get rid of it. It makes me very suspicious of nice, pretty clothing and its owners giving it away for practically nothing.) My fancy shirt was now placed on hold.

Then I decided to use “the vinegar trick.” (Dun dun dun!!) After soaking my shirt it didn’t dye my underclothes so much. (I say “so much” because some of them are pink—but I think it is from the first few usages of the shirt.)

Here is “the Vinegar Trick.”

This is like when you have a shirt that you have to wash all by itself because it gets everything else red!! Well, you might still want to wash it with only red things, (or whatever color it is), but soaking the clothing in vinegar will “stay the dye” to a very helpful degree. I soaked my red shirt in pure vinegar overnight. But years ago I did a smaller amount of vinegar to an amount of water and it worked on my red shorts. I think white and apple cider vinegars both work.

1. Get an ice cream bucket or bowl
2. Put your clothing article in it
3. Add vinegar until the whole thing can sit in wetness. (Vinegar and water work, too.)
4. Leave over night.

Do you know a laundering tip? Put it in the comments below and I’ll publish it.