Thank you, Yorkshire and good thinking Gurney. It is amazing what one can do with clothes pegs/pins.

It's the bleach thing that gets me mixed up. I just put everything in the wash at the same time: colours, whites, zebra-striped undies, all the normal stuff. I figure it this way. I have to add bleach to get the whites whiter and the white zebra stripes glistening. However, the colour shirt manufacturers say not to use bleach. Therefore, I estimate the proportion of white to coloured clothing and then delve into my memories of ratio and proportion. And here's what I do. If for example it's 3 1/2 out of 10 whites and 6 1/2 out of 10 coloured clothes, I use 3 1/2 cups of bleach to 6 1/2 cups water, but since the machine fills with water anyway, I just add another 6 1/2 cups of bleach to be sure. I am getting more and more white clothing as the months progress. Some of my t-shirts are falling apart. I think I should mix the bleach with the water first and THEN add the clothes instead of clothes, bleach then water. Always an adventure.