Spring Cleaning

My lilacs are blooming, the sand cherry is blooming, and the weather is beautiful. That usually inspires spring cleaning behaviour on my part. Which is only a good thing, really, if I think a process through first.

Yesterday I had an urge to vacuum. Later, I was looking for a sweater to wear out to knitting, and started noticing that most of the sweaters on my shelf were starting to smell a bit stale. How I didn't notice before, I don't know. But clearly they needed washing and freshening up. So, in a sudden burst of energy inspired by the lovely spring weather, I decided to start washing them then and there, and started filling the bathtub with water.

Now, the smart thing to do, seeing as I have an apartment with limited space, and quite a few sweaters of the handknit / wool / 'handwash, lay flat to dry' variety, would have been to see how many sweaters I could reasonably spread out to dry at one time, and wash only that many to begin with. However, I only thought about drying space AFTER the first batch was draining, and the second batch was soaking. Leaving me with a dozen and a half of wet sweaters to find space for.

To make life more fun, note that I couldn't even spin out the excess water in the washing machine, really. The machine in the building is a coin-operated one, and will go through the entire cycle, regardless. I wasn't going to waste money and water and hang around in order to put my sweaters in right before the spin cycle. I squeezed and pressed out what water I could, stacked the whole pile flat in the tub, and constructed a crude press to try and get more water squeezed out - meaning essentially I topped the stack with a Rubbermaid bin filled with the heaviest books I could find, and left it to drain while I had supper.
Then any sweaters that could go in the dryer went, and the rest got pressed in towels, and the various wet towels and sweaters spread out as best I could on the clothes rack and chairs, and propped on an expandable bamboo trellis under the ceiling fan.

Despite the sunny sky and open windows, I think the weather in here will be on the humid side for a couple days.