Mothballs. Really?!

My sister and I have been collecting fabric lately to use for our booth at the craft boutique.  I discovered a while ago that DI is a well kept secret when it comes to fabric, so long as you're not looking for something specific.  I was regularly checking for fabric at DI.  I found some yellow fabric that looked to be about 4 yards, give or take a little, that would work great for the booth.  I purchased it with a couple other fabric lengths.  When I got home and started to cut the tape off the fabric so I could figure out exactly how much fabric there was, I noticed an unpleasant smell.  A quick sniff of all the fabrics narrowed it down to the yellow one.

No big deal, I'll throw it in the wash and all will be well.  I washed it.  When I opened the washer to get it out I was overwhelmed with the smell, now at least 10 times as bad as it had been previously.  I put the fabric outside over the balcony railing to dry.  Inside, my entire house now smelled awful and the laundry room . . . I had to about plug my nose.  I washed the washer with bleach to get rid of the smell.

I left the fabric outside all day and commenced trying to rid my house of the stench.  When it came time to go to bed, I grabbed the fabric and dumped it unceremoniously on the kitchen floor to wait until morning (I didn't want to touch it for long, it still smelled).  Ryan had school that day after work and didn't get home until after 11.  When he came into our room he said our house smelled like some kind of strange cleaning agent.  I groaned and told him it was the fabric on the kitchen floor.  "What fabric?"  "The ugly yellow one (by now the smell had made it ugly) on the kitchen floor, it smells funny."  Ryan went to investigate.  When he came back he said, "Deanna, it's mothballs.  That's the smell!"  Mothballs!  My whole house smelled like mothballs!
Horrid, horrid stench.

I called my sister the next morning, "You know that fabric I bought?  Well, it smells like mothballs.  I washed it and it made the smell worse.  My laundry room is nigh unenterable, my house reaks and the fabric has a permanent location outside on the back deck.  What would you suggest?"  She said I should try washing it with vinegar.  I had just spent a day and a half trying to get rid of the smell.  I was not starting over. 

She suggested bringing it to her and she would see what she could do with it.  I had no problem with that, get it out of my house!  I put it in a plastic bag, tied it shut and then taped the holes so no smell could escape.  Over at my sister's I placed the bag on the table while we talked.  After a bit she said, "That fabric stinks, I can smell it from here."  Yes, yes it does.  She took it down to the laundry room.

The next day I got a text from her, "I think that fabric may be a lost cause.  It's just soaking in my washer and my whole house stinks."  I told her to throw it away.



Note to self:  Sniff fabric before purchasing.