Came to this website looking for updated info on the latest appliances and thought I'd check in with this thread. I'm glad I did. DISASSEMBLY My sleeper sofa (see posts above) had to be disassembled too. When I first ordered there was plenty of room for delivery, but during remodeling I decided to put in a door that was normal-sized (too narrow for the sofa). It wasn't hard to put the unit back together again on the other side, but it's more complicated than just screwing the legs back on. So I'd suggest you make sure the delivery people (or friends of yours) know what they're doing. Then it would be fine. It's not brain surgery, but it's not like playing with TinkerToys either. You're buying a relatively sophisticated mechanism, as well as something that looks good. So it makes sense to respect what you've paid for. You wouldn't let just anybody install a dishwasher, for example. But thousands of them get installed properly every day. AMERICAN LEATHER CUSTOMER SERVICE I would buy American Leather again, even after my nightmare. I accept that things will go wrong with a percentage of anything that's manufactured or delivered. My problem was with with my retailer, Foremost Furniture. At every step of the way they were careless. As in, they could not have cared less what happened once they had all their money. If you do not live in New York or the tri-state area, you cannot make this mistake. I believe AL pushed Foremost to fulfill their legal obligations in my case, thanks to this site. After I posted here, the situation was addressed. I could not get a refund--Foremost dragged this out for years, so the sofa was now officially "used"--but I got a store credit. That is not, IMHO, AL's fault. Foremost is a nightmare, so I warn anybody about their truly nasty management. But if you have a decent retailer (and do your research into their customer service record), I think AL is a very good value in every way. I love their stuff. I only come to this site when I am remodeling or need advice on purchases, so my purpose in posting is to clarify what I can and to be fair. I'm glad I didn't have to go the time and expense of taking legal action to solve my problem. It took years to address the problem; that's wrong. But once AL got involved, the problem was attended to in a reasonable time frame. And they only got involved because of this site and this thread. FWIW

This is the result of my koolaid dye. I used Patons Classic wool in winter white. I mixed the koolaid crystals with boiling water to dissolve. I didn't measure anything but would guess that each cup held about 1/3 cup of liquid. I used red, green and purple koolaid packets. I also made blue and yellow with boiling water and food coloring. After the yarn and the water in the crockpot were steaming, I randomly dropped in splashes of each of the five colors. When there was no white left showing on the yarn, I stopped adding color and let it "cook". No stirring. I used a soup ladle to scoop up a bit of the water in the pot and when I saw it was clear, I turned the pot off and let everything cool. Then rinsed and hung to dry. I did only one ball of yarn, just to practice, but it's enough for a pair of mitts. I love the colors and how they blended. Sorry my camera is not the best. Do try this. It's alot of fun!

It's interesting that people keep saying that prewashing the excess dye out will change the color of the fabric. In all honesty, I haven't really noticed a significant enough difference to justify throwing away any fabric. The worst one I had was a medium blue that I would never have thought would be a problem. It took me two days of repeated washes and rinses before all the excess dye was removed, but it really didn't alter the over-all color of the fabric enough to make it unusable in the project I had planned for it. And even if it had, at worst I could put it in my stash and use it for another project. I wash my fabrics in the hottest water I have available from my water heater with Orvus soap in one of my bathroom sinks. I swish the fabric around a bit, then go away and do something else for an hour or so, drain the sink, and repeat the process. It doesn't really take that much time and since I have two sinks in the bathroom, doesn't inconvenience the family at all. It's well worth the effort to make an expensive fabric useable and to have peace of mind concerning the finished quilt. Annie

Again, Indigo is not a dye. It is essentially a stain so it cant chemically bond to the fabric like a dye does. that connection is molecular. The Carbona product, the Sodium dipthionite aka Sodium hydrosulfite and a few other names is a 'reducer' It takes oxygen molecules off of chemicals. When it does that to Indigo the indigo will mix with water and will change from blue to a yellow green at the proper PH(basic) I expect the Carbona has soda ash in it as well. It would make it easier to remove excess indigo. It will also change dyes. It is often called color remover depending on the company. That is what Rit calls it. Nothing you add to indigo other than reducing it will cause it to stick any better to the fabric and that is still not a permanent thing. When you use a color remover on a dyed shirt it can have a major effect on the dye as well as helping with the stain. Something to consider. Indigo sticks to wool a whole lot better than it does cotton by the way.