How to do Laundry – a need to know skill!

Start by gathering up all of your dirty clothes. Next you will need to separate them into three different piles. 

• One pile is for all delicate clothing, meaning undergarments along with clothing made from silk, wool, lace, linen, or any other fabric that appears fine.
• The next two piles are light and dark clothing items. The dark clothing items include reds, black, grey, dark blues, dark purples, and other dark colors. This is important or else your dark clothing can stain the lighter clothes while in the wash. 

Now that your clothes are separated the next step is to load them into the washing machine. Load your washing machine until it is about ⅔ full of clothes. Next, you will need to load laundry detergent. On standard washing machines, there is a trey to insert the detergent on the top left-hand corner. Read the label of your detergent to find out how much you need but most call for about 1-2 tablespoons of detergent.

For the light and dark piles set the turning knob to “normal” and “warm water” then press start. For the delicate pile, it is a little different, set the turning knob to “delicate” on “cold water” then press start. Then set a timer for however long the machine says it will take to wash, normally around 50 minutes. 

Once the machine says that the washing process is done the next step is to transfer the clothes to the dryer. When all of the clothes are in the dryer check for lint. In most dryers there is a lint shield on the edge of the giant circle. Clean out all the lint that was collected from previous washes to ensure lint does not collect on your new clothes. Next close the drawer and again for the light and dark clothing piles turn the knob to “normal” and press start. For the delicates turn the knob to “delicate” and then press start. Once again set you time to the listed amount of time it will take for the clothing to dry.

When the timer goes off on the dryer open the drying door. Remove all of the clothes from the machine, check that all of the clothes are completely dry, they should be hot. If some clothes are still a bit damp hang them up to dry completely. For the dry clothes immediately hang up or fold the clothes to ensure the clothes do not wrinkle. Clothes will wrinkle are left in the drying machine once it is done for long periods of time. Lastly get excited that you have newly washed clothes in your closet!

*note that if you are washing towels turn the knob to “heavy duty” and “hot water” when in the washing machine. Same with the dryer, set the knob to “heavy duty”

-Lilly G.