November 3, 2016 - Are you cold - your feet are blue?

          I looked down and yes, there were blue. But they didn’t feel blue - I mean cold.  Then I noticed that the ends of my toe nails were blue.  

          Let me begin at the beginning.  Early this spring I fell upon a bargain for a set of cobalt blue bed sheets that have a white sort of spiral design in them.  They were marked down to half price and then marked down again. I snatched them up because they were the size I needed, the color I liked and a price I couldn’t ignore. 

They were the new “microfiber” sheets.  The fabric felt smooth to the touch and they felt rather light weight when I took them out of the package to verify that I had all the pieces.  Yes, a flat top, fitted bottom, and two pillow cases.  [I now check purchases right away as I’ve been burnt in the past with sheet sets that didn’t have all the pieces.] 

Because the label and the plastic bag looked like it had some age on it, I laundered them before I put them on the bed because my well-meaning friends had recently reminded me if I bought anything to be worn and didn’t wash it before I wore it I would get some – who knows what . . . .  “Cooties” I guess.

I went to bed and the next morning while I am drinking my morning coffee and reading my newspaper [funnies last] I noticed my hands looked cold, they were blue.  GEE, they didn’t feel cold.  I ignored it.   Later when I was brushing my teeth I noticed my forearms and elbows had a blue sort of tint.  Again, I chocked it up to the rainy day and poor lighting.

Later, after the rain had stopped, the sun had come out and I had just finished in the garden. I kicked off my shoes – my feet were blue, but especially my toe nails.   What would cause my toe nails to be blue?

Not until that evening when I was getting into bed and opened the covers to crawl in bed did I realize – I was blue from the dye in the sheets.  I HAD washed them before I used them.  Right then and there, I remade the bed with other sheets.  If I were this blue from one night – what would I look like after two nights?

I washed the sheets again, separately so that nothing else got blue dye from them. When dried I noticed they were a slight shade lighter. They were still in the navy blue range, but not as dark as before.  The white design was white, so the dye was not bleeding into the white.  How curious.

In high school I took home economics and was taught the theory of three sets of sheets per bed.  One on the bed, one in the wash, and one resting is the theory, i.e., fibers resting.   If you properly allowed your bed linen to “rest” between washings and on the bed, they were supposed to last much, much longer.  The theory has worked for me as I have sheets that are old enough to vote.  The elastic in the bottom sheets wear out, but I just keep tucking them in as the sheets are still lovely.

So, after washing again, the cobalt blue sheets went in to the linen closet and “rested”.

The next time the cobalt blue sheets came up for rotation, I skipped over them.  I wasn’t in the mood for “experimentation” with the dye.  I shoved them in the back and basically forgot about them.

This summer, I used the flat cobalt sheet to toss on the couch to dress the living room up a bit with dark blue – cat, dog, husband and me – the couch catches too much traffic. I thought it would make it look dark and cool. I try to keep it covered and wanted a change from the cream cover I use all the time.

The top sheet was washed a couple of times and I’ve used the pillow cases mixed with blue flowers on another bed. I thought for certain the dye situation was under control.   I put the cobalt sheet set back together and it was in the linen closet resting and waiting for rotation.

Months later and it seems I AM still having the problem with the cobalt blue sheet dye rubbing off on me?

I guess bleach is the next course of action unless I want to look like a smurf.