Q. Our family really loves pumpkin – pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin soup have all been part of our Thanksgiving meal. Inevitably, we get pumpkin stains on our tablecloth and the cloth napkins we reserve for special dinners. How do I get these stains out?
Scrape off any excess pumpkin and then flush under cold water to loosen the stain. Pretreat with a prewash stain remover. Launder in the hottest water that's safe for the fabric, using chlorine bleach, if safe for the fabric, or oxygen bleach.
Fresh stains are easier to remove, so if you're too tired after a holiday meal to pay much attention to laundry, pretreat the items with a prewash stain remover, toss them in the washing machine with laundry detergent and the type of bleach that's safe for the fabric, and let everything soak overnight.