Quoth Pezzle
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Fill the sink or basin with water. Examine the clothes to be washed. Dampen a bar of hand-soap or laundry detergent, rub soap into any stains or particularly dirty spots. 'wash your hands' in the water with the hand-soap to get plenty of soapiness in the water, or add laundry detergent.
Put the clothes into the sink or basin and swish them around.
Rub stained bits against each other. (not brocades, laces, beaded fabrics and the like). If the stain is stubborn, you might need to rub for anything from ten seconds to ten minutes, depending on stubbornness and size.
Swish for a while - two or three minutes if the water stays clear, five or ten if it doesn't.
If the water is an icky brown or grey, let it out, refill, wash the clothes again. (still with soap)
Hopefully it'll only take one or two changes before the water stays clear to your eyes.
Let the water out. Squeeze the clothes until there's not much water comes out when you squeeze. (Don't squeeze knits)
Refill the tub. Rinse the clothes - no soap, still with the swishing. Let the water out.
Refill and rinse again, to make sure all the soap is out of the clothes. If you like to use a fabric softener, put it in during this rinse.
If you can't afford them to be wet in the morning, lay a towel on the floor. Lay the clothes flat on the towel, roll the clothing and towel together. Walk all over the towel, squishing the water out of the clothes and into the towel.
(Do this with knits, too - hanging a knitted garment up wet will stretch it out)
If you have a dryer, you can put a towel-squished garment into the dryer.
If you don't have a dryer, and you don't have a drying rack or a washing line, put the garment on a hanger and hang it over any tiled surface or in the shower or something.
If the garment is knitted, lay it flat, preferably on an airing rack, but on a towel on the kitchen table will do in a pinch.
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