I have two light (cream) colored linen blend sofas in my living room and a chocolate brown leather sofa in the family room. Hands down, the dark leather wears the best and cleans the easiest. It holds up to my Tibetan Spaniel's long hair and her little claws too. It holds up to teens whose shoes are somehow magically attached to their feet, so they all end up on the sofa! It holds up to the rivets on their jeans and to their clumsy spills, too. Heck, it holds up to MY clumsy spills! Our linen sofas do just fine out in the living room, but that's because our doberman isn't allowed out there, the kids aren't allowed to eat on them or put their shoes up on them. If I were ever going to replace the family room leather sofa with a fabric, it would be a darkish chenille in a small print or pattern to hide spots, etc.

I worked for a dry cleaner for several years in my (sort of) misspent youth. I worked in the alterations department and I also learned to press which meant I spent a lot of time "out back" with the dry cleaner and the spotter. I learned a TON about fabric care and when I no longer worked that job (and no longer received free dry cleaning!) I began learning how to properly launder things, by reading old sewing and Home Economics books I picked up at yard sales. "Dry clean only" is the safety net for manufacturers. If they slap that label on something they're protected from liability. Consider that both sheep and geese routinely get wet. ;) Cold water and a dilute solution of my favorite laundry detergent is how I wash things like comforters. I will take them to a laundromat to use the extractor to really get remaining water out of them and use their dryers (I don't have a dryer). I routinely wash our feather pillows by first soaking them with the garden hose (this keeps them from floating in the washer). I put them in the washing machine with a cup of ammonia and run the cycle. I rinse them twice. Ammonia cuts grease (and everyone's hair is oily and sometimes we sweat while we're in bed). I take them to the laundromat and "extract" them and then dry them, finishing with a full day in the sunshine on top of the car, turning every couple of hours. They look nearly brand new when I'm done. They're now nearly 15 yrs. old, too. I use ammonia a lot actually; esp. for woolens. I use it for hats, socks, mittens (I rinse carefully and add a capful of lanolin to the final rinse to add water repellency and promote elasticity in the wool fibres). I block and dry them flat or, in the case of socks, on stretchers.

I used the dye meant for tub-dyeing natural fabrics (my slipcover is cotton). I also ordered and used the soda ash and LOTS of white vinegar. I ordered pH strips too because I saw somewhere on their website that the bath had to have a certain pH but then I couldn't find the info when I did the dyeing so I skipped that part! They have excellent instructions online. Just make sure to set a timer so you can go back and turn the washer timer back so all of your dye doesn't go down the drain before the time is up. You will need to set it back numerous times.

RN, the sequins and beads were sewn on to lace. They lost none of their luster in the wash. I was afraid if i soaked just the bottoms of the gowns the soaked fabrics would behave differently from the unsoaked fabrics and trims, so I pushed the entire gown into the machine for the soak and wash. Every bit of the black dirt on the hems and trains is gone. One girl was married in a garden so you can imagine what that was like, the other was married in a children's museum and the wine drips on the front are absolutely gone! I only air dried the gowns in the dryer for several minutes to get the layers fluffed, then hung them on doors to dry. That took days! I fluffed and readjusted repeatedly, but in the end both gowns are perfect and we saved hundreds of dollars. Re The cleaning and preserving: My own gown was preserved in 1968. When we opened it before my eldest dtrs wedding in 1996, all the silver baguettes my mother had sewn on my lace had turned black, and the little seed pearls had lost their luster. It was awful, completely studded with black spots, so useless for any purpose at all. For some reason, I saved it anyway! We Good luck with the project!