Freaky weather and a request for washing advice

[strange_complex]

When I first moved to Belfast, I was told that the weather was extremely changeable here, and that people often spoke of experiencing 'four seasons in one day'.

Today, I walked into town in the early afternoon in order to do a bit of shopping. As I left my house, I sighed with pleasure at the feel of the sun's warmth on my skin, and looked up into a blue sky punctuated by fluffy white clouds. I walked town-wards for a couple of minutes, and then felt a heavy drop of rain on my eyebrow... quickly followed by a succession of several more. Hoiking my umbrella out of my bag, I looked up to see that the sky had turned a uniform iron gray, and I was surprised to hear a rumble of thunder. Being British, I carried out walking through the downpour, gamely pointing my umbrella into the biting wind which had by now arisen. A mere minute more, and a new development occurred: suddenly, the plummeting rain turned to hail. Hail, in fact, which fell more heavily and more thickly than I believe I've ever seen hail do before. Fearing for the health of my umbrella, I renounced my Britishness after all and took shelter in a bus-stop, joining a young couple in T-shirts, who were shivering and gaping in awe at the natural spectacle we were witnessing. After two minutes of mutual wowing, the hail ceased as quickly as it had begun, and I set off on my way once more, crunching and sliding a little over the layer of fallen hailstones as I did so. By the time I was approaching the town centre, five minutes later, it was warm again, and dark sections of pavement were literally steaming as the sun hit them and the melted remains of the hailstones condensed off into the atmosphere.

Next time, I think I will get the bus.

My shopping in town was fairly boring, but on the way back home I dropped into 'Rusty Zip', a retro clothing store on Botanic Avenue. There, I bought a beautiful halterneck party dress in a shiny fabric which is black in some lights and a rich, dark purple in others. I also bought a large puffy skirt, much like the bottom half of a ball-gown, in a bright purple satiny fabric. It is floor-length, and apparently designed with one simple aim in mind - to be as HYUGE as possible. I do believe that if I filled it with hot air, I could hang a basket from it and fly across the Atlantic. And I love it!

However, it has a flaw, which is that some kind of liquid has obviously been spilt over it in the past, in quite significant quantities. It's left water-marks in several places, so I need to find a suitable way of cleaning it to get these out. However, it has no washing instructions on it - in fact, I think it may be hand-made. So I'm uncertain as to whether I can hand-wash it, or whether it might need taking to the dry-cleaners. I'm also doubtful about whether they would be able to do anything about water-marks anyway, so I'm hoping I can hand-wash it.

Under the cut which follows is a scan of a section of the skirt, complete with one of the worst stains. The stripey effect in the picture is just a peculiarity of my scanner: in real life, the fabric is a smooth, shiny texture, with consistent colouring. It has a slightly crinkly feel when you rub it between your fingers, and I would guess has quite a lot of nylon in it. Underneath is a layer of white netting and a lining of thin white material which I am almost certain is nylon.

My instinct is that I probably can hand-wash this... but if anyone who knows a thing or two about fabrics would care to take a look at the scan and comment, I would be very grateful for any advice.

Comments

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

I´ve always found that if a fabric is a bit delicate you can´t do it any damage by washing it with baby shampoo. A cheap one from superdrug (if they have them where you are) will do fine.

Can´t see pic very well, but if the patches are lighter then you can always fin a pencil or felt tip in that colour and cover them with that and febreze it like mad.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tip! The light bits are just bits of residue from whatever was spilt on the skirt, so I'm quite sure they'll wash off. It's the dark staining that I'm more worried about. I think I'm gradully talking myself towards just gently hand-washing it, anyway.

N.I. weather = Evil

[sir-didymus.livejournal.com]

Where was one time I walked to work, it was sunny so I didn't wear a coat, as soon as I was far enough from the house, the rain became really heavy.

I came into work like a drowned rat!

[davesangel.livejournal.com]

Ah the joys of NI weather...that's usually why I wander round in my stupid-looking raincoat thing, because I can never tell what the weather will be like (and it has big pockets so that's handy to store my purse and other essentials in). The other bizarre thing is that I live in North Belfast and the weather is very often dramatically different to the weather round the university weather. So if it's nice here and I go out without a warm coat, I'm freezing by the time I get to the library!

Your halter dress sounds absolutely gorgeous, by the way!

That is a very interesting story;

[syrcleoftrees.livejournal.com]

Years ago I found to place ice cubes on nylon would in fact take stains off.Since nylon is basically non-pourous,it lifts the stain like it does gum or labels on those jars of odd shape you wish to keep,but do not want the label on. Other than that,it is a shame,oh,you could try borax.

[kaz-pixie.livejournal.com]

Canterbury has similar weather conditions - one minute it can be arid and the next we'll have snow - in fact that happened at the time of the snow - we had sunshine, warmth, then snow, then rain, then hail, then sunshine again. It made my brain hurt.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Weather like that is one of the joys of being British. We got a touch of the same in Manchester yesterday, but not quit as dramatic.