Eeee! Take That, Katrina!

Today my goal was to attempt some careful bleach magic on one of my favorite items of clothing stained by Katrina. Quick recap: The ceiling of my closet collapsed during the hurricane, and then the clothes sat there in the wet humidity for a month before I could get to them. I lost a fair amount of stuff. Technically, I lost more, except that I hate to throw things out, so I saved a lot of stained clothes, figuring I could just wear them around the house. I had a serious heartbroken breakdown in a laundromat in Raceland, LA (a long story which you can read about here or here), over some items that were just too stained to save. Anyhow, to my horror this dress (in fact the only white piece of clothing I think I did not throw out) had mold stains. (Click on the close-up to witness the creeping crud along the top.)

This dress is kind of important to me. I wore it at the Tick Tock the night before I graduated. Strangely, this picture of my brother Bryan posing with me on the dance floor that night is the one that gives you the best idea of the whole dress. Besides the fact that I wore it to practically every event in college, I just like it a lot. I've washed it twice since the hurricane with no luck. I've Shouted it to no avail. Yesterday I bleached some ink spots out of my work apron, which reminded me of the dress... It was a delicate process, because I didn't want to bleach out the embroidered flowers, some of which are dangerously close to the creeping crud. I did it in my underwear, since I was using way more than the prescribed amount of bleach per gallon of water and definitely did not want to splash. And now...

The Katrina creeping crud is gone! Aaahhhh! I love my dress. :-) Am now soaking a white cotton skirt from White House/Black Market. (Fine, I lied, the dress wasn't the only stained white thing I kept; I have this horrific inability to throw anything away, OK?)

Tags: hurricane katrina