BAD...TO WORSE....

Let me preface this by saying that 

I know we are talking about a sofa here.

No one is dying here and everyone is in one piece.

I have perspective,

 trust me there are plenty of "real" issues to keep the balance.

That being said...

I am JUST SICK about my sofa.

I think It is ruined.

and I think.....

I ruined it.

....this is what I did:

first, I just took all the cushions off, the two that got muddied and

the other two so they would be the same amount of faded, 

if indeed they did fade.

I decided that I could put a pillow in front of the body of the sofa 

slipcover and did not want it to look shabby, which is what could happen if I washed it.

The cushion washed okay. 

     The stain required two runs through it never came out and in fact, the mud got on the nice clean cushions so I ended up with 4 kind of dirty looking cushions.

Oh and did I mention, the color no longer matched the body of the sofa.

PLAN B

Now I decided to read all of the suggestions and some recommended using tide powder and making a paste and applying that to the stubborn area,

and letting sit for 1-3 hours.

Someone else suggested oxyclean and the online chat rooms swore by it so I decided to combine the suggestions, make a paste out of oxyclean and apply it

for one hour.

In the meantime I put the body of the sofa in the washer 

with oxyclean. 

The body washed up fine, I dried it for 15 minutes and then put it back on damp so it would stretch back on and then I put the cushions in the 

washer with the paste.

When they finished I went to check on them and found that the area I

 had pasted, was MUCH whiter than the rest of the cushions, like it was stained

white...or like when you spill bleach on your jeans.

no problem, I tried to tell myself, I ran it through TWO more times, with oxyclean in the whole wash. 

I then took the wet cushions outside and lay them on a big sheet in the bright sun, to dry and hopefully bleach out all over.

When I put them back on, I found that the white stain is still very prominent and

on one of the cushions, there is a hole developing along the zipper from being washed and beaten up for two days.

This is as far as I have gotten. 

I put the cushions back on and I really can't imagine that this is going to get better. New slip covers from Pottery Barn, which is where the sofa is from, are 

1/2 the cost of the sofa. I can't do that.

I just am so bummed.

I wish so bad I had just turned the sofa cushion over!!! No one would have been the wiser and I would not have a blotchy, shrunken, pilly, holey

sofa that I got 3 weeks ago.