Categories: uncategorized
Date: 15 May 2006 22:02:44
Note: If the sister who does proper felt-making is reading this, please don't laugh at me.
Anyway. I have two cashmere/wool mix jumpers. They are getting a bit old now, and bobbly. They have labels which originally said 'dry clean only' but have been covered with stickers saying 'may be handwashed'. So I've always been very careful with them, thinking if they originally were dry clean only, and then grudgingly accepted that some gentle handwashing might be acceptable, they are presumably fairly delicate.
There is no room in my life any more for handwash only jumpers. I can cope with the occasional silk top or whatever that I'll only wear once in a blue moon if I go out, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to handwash jumpers. They take so long to dry, for a start.
So I've been reading a bit about machine felting, which is where you take a knitted wool (or other natural fibre) garment and stick it in the washing machine on a hot wash, and it comes out like felt. Well, actually as felt. The heat and agitation makes all the tiny little fibres mesh up and stick together so it's not like a knitted fabric any more. (That is as technical an explanation as you'll get from me.) I checked the labels of the jumpers. They're actually cashmere, wool and a little bit of synthetic, but mostly wool and cashmere.
You know where I'm going with this, don't you?
So today, I was washing a white sheet on a 65 degree wash, and I stuck these two jumpers in with it. Nothing to lose. If it works, I make felt bags with the result (tragically already designed in my head - what is wrong with me?). If it doesn't and there is horrible uneven shrinkage and ruining of jumpers without making anything usable, ah well, I don't want handwash jumpers anyway.
I just took them out of the machine. They are fine. Not only are they not felted, they haven't shrunk, become mis-shapen or any more bobbly than they already were. A 65 degree wash!!
What the heck were all those 'treat me gently' labels about then?