Little Stalky Tries to Wash her Blanket Type Thing

Yesterday, after a morning of painting, I decided it would be a good idea to try and wash the blanket type thing that lives at the end of our bed.  It's sort of half blanket, half duvet, half throw.  I'm aware that my blanket type thing is now made up of three halves but that makes it even more special.  I like my blanket type thing and thought it was rather stylish with its matching pillow cases and warm gold and brown colours.  It also does rather a good job of keeping you warm on the nights when it's not quite cold enough for a full on duvet but not quite warm enough for just a sheet.  But the blanket type thing does require washing and that is a huge pain in the bum.  Not only is it hand wash only, it's also massive and barely fits in the washing machine.  Our old washing machine could take about 7kg but as we all know this washing machine was evil.  The new, less evil, washing machine can only take about 5.5kg.  But me being me I figured I'd give it a go anyway.  Most washing machines seem to have a hand wash setting now and to be honest, there was no way I was fitting the blanket type thing in the sink.  So I shoved him in, got him going and hoped for the best.  Alas the best did not prevail.  I opened the washing machine to see that there was congealed detergent everywhere.  It had no room to move and the water wasn't doing its thing so there was just white powder all over the place.  Bugger.  But I was not to be deterred.  I heaved the blanket type thing into a new position and set the cycle going again, this time without detergent.  My hope was that another rinse would get rid of the detergent and leave my blanket type thing smelling all clean and fresh.  The 2nd time round I got pretty much the same results.  I ended up lugging the blanket type thing out into the lounge to hang over the banister.  My next plan was to let the detergent dry and then shake off the powder at a later stage.  A cunning plan that didn't work out.  The detergent started coming off in clumps and landing on the carpet!  Not the carpet!  Not when I'd only just hoovered.  So I got the hoover out again and was most distressed to find that the gooey detergent did not want to be sucked up by the Dyson.  No.  It wanted to sit there and make a mess of my floor.  I had to get a cloth, wipe it all up, wait for the patch to dry and then hoover.  What a pain.  And still my blanket type thing was covered in white patches of detergent gone wrong.  I was having one of those moments when I wished I'd never begun the stupid task.  I should have just let the blanket type thing get smelly and sprayed it once in a while to mask the odour.  Much less hassle.  I ended up leaving it over night and woke up this morning to realise that it was still covered in detergent.  My hope had been that midnight faeries would come and tidy things up.  But they did not.  So this morning I figured I was better off not putting it back in the washing machine.  I thought about rinsing it in the sink but remembered my previous problem of the sink being too small.  So I ran a bath for my blanket type thing and shoved it in.  This seemed to work a treat.  It got all of the manky detergent off and rinsed everything nicely.  The only problem is the blanket type thing is very big.  And a very big blanket type thing soaked in water becomes impossibly heavy.  So heavy in fact that I can't actually move it from the bath tub.  I had plans of hanging it out on the line but I can see that's not going to happen until Mystical Roo gets home.  There's no way I can lift that thing on my own.  And I'm obviously not getting any help from the midnight faeries.  So now I have the blanket type thing, dripping wet, lounging in my bathtub.  Draining I hope.  And not going smelly.  Of course the floor is covered in even more detergent so I've had to whip the hoover out again.  I think it's sick of the taste of washing powder.  It will protest if I bring it out again.  So, washing the blanket type thing is a task I wish I'd never started.  When it is finally dry and clean I think I'll want to pack it away and only bring it out on special occasions because washing this beast is a mission!  I started yesterday lunchtime and I'm still doing it now.