Saturday, October 20, 2007

An ugly little problem

Several months ago, my husband, dropped this 'beauty' in my lap. I did what any self-respecting woman would do - I jumped! Then I looked at it and realized that it was just little threads all crammed together. It came out of one of his customer's washer's drain hoses. She had just completed a rag quilt and did the necessary washing to make it fuzz up. She called us to come out because for some reason her washer wasn't draining. After much checking of washer parts and finding no problem, Larry found this clog in her drain hose.

Most of the directions for rag quilts include the admonishment to check your dryer lint screen several times during the drying process but they don't warn you that larger pieces of thread can get into your washer and clog the drain hose, or worse yet, get knotted in your drain pump.

Now most of us don't admit to our spouses the actual amount we spend on fabric but it is really hard to hide the bill from the appliance repairman! So this is just a friendly warning to anyone making a rag quilt - GO TO THE LAUNDROMAT!!!!

6 comments:

Rosalyn Manesse said...

Yes, that's why I'll never make one of those raggedy things.

Cheryl said...

Great post!! Never thought of the threads getting clogged in the pipes!

Anonymous said...

Wow, I've made several rag quilts and used my washer. Thank goodness I never had a problem!!

Quilting Pirate said...

EPPP!!! no wonder you jumped!! Thanks for the heads up!

Rose Marie said...

Now, who would ever have thought of that! Oddly enough, I'm having a bit of problem with my washer and after my husband read this post, he is going to check this out. I don't make rag quilts, but have washed quite a lot of fat quarters over the last few years and they would certainly add up to a lot of lint and threads.

Not Lucy said...

rose marie - not sure if fat quarters will give you enough threads in a short enough time to cause a problem but they could. Washers do interesting things! I always serge the edges of fabric before washing to avoid the raveling.