I have made several potatoe bags, and soup bowl holders, and have only had one person say their bag had a few dark marks, along with a small burnt spot, where one of the seams were sewn. Thinking it was just marks on the fabric, as maybe there had been some food source on the outside of the bowl, and she attempted to hand wash it out, then realised that it was definitely the start of a burn situation. She had placed two potatoes in the soup bowl holder and set it for 6 minutes.....no wonder it started to get so hot and she tossed it into the garbage, Some of the holders I originally made, I used 100% cotton, wrapped with polyester,,,,I since hearing her story make all items to use in the microwave with 100% cotton, fabric, batting and thread, I also include a card to indicate no longer than 2 minutes of cooking time per item. Here are instructions to make a potatoe bag. Cut one 9 x 20 inch rectangle each of the outer fabric, lining fabric and batting. 2. Place the outer fabric and lining fabric, right sides together and batting against wrong side of the lining fabric. Press the outer fabric lengthwise in order to have a center line - see #3 3. On your batting - Using a ruler mark a line across and down from the top at 6" - (use this line so your points will match in the middle at the top of the flap and line up evenly across the bag), and then trim at a 45 degree angle from the center fold, to the outside edge on each side. Stitch around all sides, leaving a 3"opening for turning. Trim the excess batting, and clip corners. Turn right side out, poke all corners and point. Stitch opening closed. You can quilt your bag, before you proceed. Or Not. Fold the bottom up to within one inch of your outside points and stitch the sides, to create a bag. Launder before using your new potatoe and vegetable bag.

My procedure and product used described above and repeated below. Do you know your water quality? Does your machine have a cycle that would give you a "hot" wash.....something around, say, 130F or so? Are you able to measure it? At cyber-distance, I would suggest this: Find out the answer to those questions. Then, begin by running a "clean machine" cycle (or whatever your machine calls it) to be certain you're starting without previous contamination in there. Observe the water condition in there so you can see it's cleaned out. Then run a full load of already-clean laundry on "hot" -- meaning 130F of so -- without adding anything and observe the water during the cycle and the clothes upon completion. I suspect you may learn a lot. For reference, I tell you: My machine is nominal 3.8cf capacity -- which is about 18lbs. (I suspect yours is similar) I have soft water. For a full load of "normally" soiled whites I use 1/4 cup of Tide HE powder and about 1 tablespoon of Oxyclean. (If I had hard water, I would increase the dosage depending on how hard -- which is why I'm interested in your water quality.) Sometimes I use Downy liquid. My "whitest whites" cycle heats to 127F and I increase the time so that I get a dwell of about 20 minutes at that temperature. This cycle gives a second rinse also. My results have been consistently excellent for more than six years, now. I have no doubt your machine is capable of the same. I suspect all that is required is learning the correct balance of procedure and product for your conditions. One caveat: If you don't have a machine with a built-in heater, you will not be able to attain this temperature in the wash. If that's the case, I don't think you will be able to match the result.

With anything like this you still need to take the normal precautions. Get a good firewall, not the lame excuse that comes in Windows. Microsoft doesn't do many things right. Antivirus needs to be kept current. Spywareblaster should be installed as should a couple malware detectors. If you have trouble, run them in safe mode. Clean out cookies and temp files frequently. Check Windows Updates weekly. And if you run Internet Explorer, plan on trouble - it's the swiss cheese of browsers for security. And we've been seeing a resurgence of problems with it and with naive users over the past few weeks. Computers need maintenance, just like a car. And you have to be careful about opening attachments and the like. One of the latest threats is through .PDF files so Adobe Reader is vulnerable. I haven't used Adobe Reader for years. You can also go to an online virus scanner and check your machine if you're suspicious of your current one. Surf safe folks.

OMG! I love fridge pictures. There is a whole web site somewhere just for pictures of the inside of people's fridge's. I'll have to see if I can find it again and post a link! I am ashamed to say my own fridge is not in the best of order right now and it is just too hot to clean it out. Yours is gorgoeus!!! Joann