Washing wool sweaters

Hi:

I am been visiting thift stores in search of good wool sweaters. (I don't buy
them new since if one of the dogs puts a hole in a new wool sweater, I would be
mad. If they put a hole in a $5 wool sweater, I am not mad.) Anyway found
three wool sweaters plus another sweater that is gorgeous but not made of wool.
One of the wool sweaters is a beautiful grey Irish knit cardigan made in
Ireland for L.L. Bean. It is exactly what I was looking for.

But I had to tell everybody what else I found while there. There was a
beautiful handmade Irish knit sweater in cream color. It still had the "From
the knitting needles of " tag in it. The sad part is whoever was given this
sweater as a gift obviously did not know or care to take care of it properly.
It had been shrunk down to a size that only a child could have fit into. What
a waste of a beautiful piece of work.

I would suggest that if you give someone a handmade wool item, I would include
written instructions along with a small bottle of woolwash, babyshampoo or
whatever so that the person has the right items at hand when the item needs
washing.

HTH

Lee

GSHEPDOG wrote:
Hi:

I am been visiting thift stores in search of good wool sweaters. (I
don't buy them new since if one of the dogs puts a hole in a new wool
sweater, I would be mad. If they put a hole in a $5 wool sweater, I
am not mad.) Anyway found three wool sweaters plus another sweater
that is gorgeous but not made of wool. One of the wool sweaters is a
beautiful grey Irish knit cardigan made in Ireland for L.L. Bean. It
is exactly what I was looking for.

But I had to tell everybody what else I found while there. There was
a beautiful handmade Irish knit sweater in cream color. It still had
the "From the knitting needles of " tag in it. The sad part is
whoever was given this sweater as a gift obviously did not know or
care to take care of it properly. It had been shrunk down to a size
that only a child could have fit into. What a waste of a beautiful
piece of work.

I would suggest that if you give someone a handmade wool item, I
would include written instructions along with a small bottle of
woolwash, babyshampoo or whatever so that the person has the right
items at hand when the item needs washing.

Oh, Lee, how upsetting! I hope that the knitter never found out about the
shrinking.

Katherine

In article ,
GSHEPDOG wrote:

snip
I would suggest that if you give someone a handmade wool item, I would
include written instructions along with a small bottle of woolwash,
babyshampoo or whatever so that the person has the right items at hand
when the item needs washing.

That's a neat idea.

My sister's method was to get those cloth name tags (the kind that were
sold for tagging camp clothes) made with "hand wash", "dry clean", and
"machine wash" printed on them. She sewed them into anything she was
given that was handmade so that when she was sorting laundry in a hurry
to go to the laundromat all she had to do was look at the tag.

=Tamar

Lee you idea is good i did it several times ,,, But Alas at HOME , my
husband , once `felted` a sweater of mine , it happened when the kids
were samll and both they and me had the chicken pox , he made the
washing , and threw Everything in the same load . Never before did i
see Cabled Felt ,,,,
mirjam