Catch Me If You Can

I know that I am lucky to have a husband who does laundry. I really do know that. But at the risk of sounding ungrateful, I didn't really like the way he did see. You see, we both agree on the principle of conserving resources by doing full loads whenever possible. My preference is to wait till there are enough items for either a full load of colors or a full load of whites. He, on the other hand, doesn't like seeing the laundry bin full, so he throws it all in together whenever there are enough clothes for a full load of any kind. He *mixes* colors and whites together, and we have the tell-tale blue and occasional pink tinges on some of our whites to prove it. Sigh.

So when I saw an ad for Shout Color Catcher, I knew I had to get it! And guess what? It really does help grab some of the excess dye that comes out in the wash water. See?


Yeah, my husband saw it too. He no longer mixes the colors and whites together, but I am still using the sheets because with 2 kids responsible for sorting their own laundry, mistakes do happen. I also think it'll be helpful for washing things that have a mix of lights and darker colors, including colorwork handknits.

Anyway, all of this brings me to my most recent FO, which is made from Cascade Portland Tweed. The modeled shots will have to wait, but I wanted to share with you that this thing took forever to block. I did my usual wet blocking and there was sooo much dye released into the water that I decided to soak it in vinegar afterwards. Since then, I've done about 8 more water soaks and there's still a bit of dye that comes out, but I don't think anything will rub off on my other clothing now if I wear it. Just for kicks, I swished the Color Catcher through the water for about a minute during one of the later soaks, just to see how it'd do. It picked up a lot of the dye, but not all of it.


*Note: I know this sounds like one of those ads some bloggers do when they are sent a product for review, but I promise it's not.
*Another note: If you have a front-loading washer like I do, you'll want to put the Color Catcher sheets in a mesh laundry bag. I've read many reports about them getting stuck in the machines otherwise.