If at first you don't succeed....

...there's always a silver lining to the cloud. ...Or was it blue lining?

Must be blue, 'cause that's the color the bottom of our tub was when I drained the dye-remover solution out a few minutes ago. Lovely blue dye ran in streaks all over the bottom of the tub.

Oh yes - the fabric? Still blue. (If this story makes no sense to you, check out a previous installment.)

"Great. I soak blue fabric to turn it white, and instead I turn our white tub blue." The humor of the situation was not lost on me, but I would have laughed harder if I hadn't been picturing what my parents were going to say.

I can't believe how stubborn this fabric is. The "thrill of the chase and the excitement of the attempt" is beginning to fade a little. Too bad it's the only thing that's fading; the denim has no intentions of doing such a thing. If I cared enough to dig through my scrap pile and find the labels from these 3 pairs of jeans, I would write the companies and tell them this whole story in hopes of being hired to endorse their jeans; "Buy these jeans - they will never (ever, ever, ever, ever, ever) fade!" :) :) Now I know why faded jeans in the stores are so expensive. :)

So there I was, staring at blue streaks on a white tub. Slowly, ever so slowly, hope began to dawn. I knelt down and rubbed a rubber-gloved finger (this is dangerous stuff, this dye remover; might eat up your skin!...Never mind eating up the dye.) over one blue streak.

It came off.

Not only that, but the brown soap-scum that lies on the bottom of every old tub came off with it. Underneath was pure white - like a brand new tub.

Now I was really excited. (Yes, this is me; the person who hates to clean the tub.) I grabbed a scrubbing pad from the cleaning cupboard and briskly attacked the bottom of our tub.

It started turning white!!!! Really, shiny, new-y white! I've discovered a new tub cleaner! It takes 7 hours of soaking time, but it works really well!

So maybe the lining is silver after all. But you haven't heard the best part:

Mom went shopping this afternoon.

Guess what she came home with?

That's right; a white skirt. A white skirt for me.

Dear Mom. She knew I wouldn't care that I'll have to alter it to be able to wear it. I think she figured that even the most intensive sewing project couldn't be worse than my current one.

You know what? I think she's right.