washing

[ashicka]

I recently bought a huge stash of thread at the thrifty. Lots of very cool bright colors, variegated, and looks like some interesting HDT in there. I didn't realize it until I got it home and opened up the plastic baggies, but it reeks. Bad.
Really bad.
I tested out some of it to see how hard it would be to get the smoke/attic/cat smell out, and my usual light hand washing doesn't seem to have enough of an effect on it.
Any suggestions? I really don't want to toss all of this out...
I was thinking about putting some of it in pillow cases and throwing it in the machine, but I'm worried that might completely ruin the thread (plus the unraveling of giant knots factor that I'm sure I would have to contend with).

[carolivy]

I got a huge assortment of thread from a lady who smoked. It smelled absolutely horrid! I put it all in a huge plastic tote with about 3 brand new Bounce Dryer Sheets for about 2 months...no smells at all now. ;-)

[xstchntat]

I got some from ebay that smelled bad so I spread it out on the bed and sprayed it with Fabreeze and no more smell after it dried

[Sulu]

I tried washing some smelly fabric with household vinegar in the water. That worked as well.

[Lynn]

Sometimes giving something a good sunning will take out odors. If you live in a part of the world where the snows are receding enough to get outside for a bit you might try spreading everything on your picnic table, on a clean towel or sheet.

[HJ Hess]

I was given a bunch of yarn once, which I had to discard from the stench. :smstarz: :yuk:
Sometimes it is better just to dump it. :smcry:
.

[ashicka]

quick update on this:
half of it I trashed. I started unwinding the thread into skeins.. and realized a lot of it had some rot. So out that went. Sad because it was the very fine silky threads, but that happens I suppose.
The other half I soaked in some diluted vinegar water, fabrized the heck out of it, and let it dry in the sun. Seems to have worked pretty well so far. Now if I could just get the mum to stop grabbing my tatting and bringing them around cigarette smoke I would be all set. :furious:

[Lynn]

Oh, that's too bad about the rot. Sounds like you are doing well with the rest of it.

Don't know what to tell you about the cig smoke, except that I understand. Again, a good airing will take care of that too. But what a pain!

[carolivy]

You can always put a Bounce Dryer sheet in with your tatting, so that if it does get the smokey smell, the sheet wil neutralize is fairly fast.

[HJ Hess]

As I am a "Super Taster" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster), my sense of smell is very acute. Very few methods actually eliminate strong odors; they mostly mask the smell. So I rarely attempt to de-stink (un-stink?) badly stunked-up stuff. :yuk:
.

[KJF16]

Thank you for this thread (excuse the pun). I just bought 26 skeins of thread off Etsy, and got a box that smells like smoke. Being it's still winter here (got 5+ inches of snow today), I can't put it outside, but I did put a softener sheet in the box. I can wash it, if necessary. I'll see how it smells in a week. {{sigh}}