Twenty five years of laundry
I'm not sure whether to be embarrassed or proud of the fact that I have been practicing the fine art of laundering for 25 years. My mother went back to work when I was 10 and began training me hard to be the domestic queen I am today. She practiced that old school of parenting in which it was essential for children to not grow up helpless, but be able to function as adults before reaching college age.

I took over all responsibility for the family laundry at age 11. With adequate training, this really is a pretty easy chore, even for a preteen (and anyone else at least as smart as a 5th grader, such as spoiled husbands). Not that I didn't have a few mishaps in the beginning--a wool sweater wound up toddler sized, I had occassional dripped bleach and a sneaky black sock once turned a load of whites gray.

Rather than wax nostalgic about washing peasant dresses and terry cloth shirts, I thought I'd celebrate this anniversary year by sharing some of my best laundry tips.

Best time savers
+ Don't handwash hoisery. Invest in some mesh lingerie bags (try Target or Walmart). Stick the hose in the bag and wash with your regular laundry. Wash light colors in warm and darks in cold. Hang to dry on a drying rack or on a plastic hanger.

+ Most "handwash" sweaters can be washed on delicate cycle in the machine, if they are colorfast (dye does not bleed when you get a small section wet and squeeze it). Turn the sweater inside out (to prevent friction pills) and wash in a large lingerie bag or pillowcase tied closed. Wool items seem to shrink no matter how you wash them, so use the machine, but be sure to reshape the item as it drip dries. (Personally, I save time by having wool sweaters bulk dry cleaned by the pound.)

+ Items that aren't colorfast must be handwashed, but forget about squeezing or wringing. After washing and rinsing in the sink, put the lone wet item in the machine and run it through the spin cycle.

+ If you have some consistent types of stains (baby spit up, toddler food drips, grungy socks) you can save time by soaking big vats of stained stuff for 8 to 24 hours in oxyclean or borax or bleach instead of pretreating individual stains.

+ Items labeled "drip dry" or "lay flat to dry" can be helped along by running through a second spin cycle and/or drying on low heat in the dryer for just a few minutes (too hot or too long will cause shrinkage). Caveat: never put wool in the dryer.

+ Speed drying times by mixing the weights of fabrics in the load. A load of all towels, for example, dries far slower than towels mixed with sheets and Tshirts.

+ Unless you have run out of clean clothes, wait until you have full loads before washing. You just waste time and money running the machine half full twice as often.

...stay tuned for more tips in this continuing series.