Its no secret that I love sweaters. I am cold all the time, so sweaters are my saving grace. I'm that girl in the summer who throws on a sweater with shorts. My friends think I'm crazy, but I love my sweaters. What I don't love about my sweaters is seeing the "Dry Clean" label on the tag. Ugh! Nothing takes away from finding a great sweater than seeing that it will need to be dry cleaned after wearing. To me spending money on dry cleaning is wasted shopping money. Every now and then I will dry clean when I know that my clothes need some TLC, but for the most part, I am a washing machine girl. So at the beginning of this sweater season I set out to find fool-proof way (note: I move way quickly, and mess things up in the blink of an eye) to wash my sweaters without schlepping to the dry cleaner once a week and dropping $100 that could be spent on a great new outfit.
First I started with some good old Googling. I will admit, I have thrown merino sweaters through the wash before, so I knew that occasionally that was okay, but I was scared to wash my cashmere collection. I have used cashmere sprays and the like, but I wanted a way to really know that my sweaters were clean. On of the first stops on my search was The Laundress. I have purchased items from their sweater care collaboration with J.Crew (cashmere spray, sweater comb, and collars and cuffs bar), all of which are completely fabulous. The sweater spray smells amazing! I use it on everything - sweaters, wool scarves, wool jackets, etc. When I saw their care instructions grid, I knew it would have some answers. It is awesome! It lets you know what can be washed, when to dry clean, when to machine wash...amazing! Next I found the Recipe page. Also awesome. The laundry experts let me know that you can machine wash cashmere and wool and that it is recommended over dry cleaning. The harsh chemicals in dry cleaning can destroy fibers. With their tips in mind (and some advice from my cashmere loving friends) I put my good faith in the recipe and headed to the washer. Here is how I got my sweaters so fresh and so clean!
1. Make sure you have mesh bags. I had purchased some when I was in college to make sure that I did not lose socks (I hate odd socks! Drives me nuts!) and unmentionables in the communal washers. They have packs of them in varying sizes at Target with the hangers, irons, and drying racks. I used 5 at a time.
2. Split your sweaters up by color. I went on a sweater cleaning binge and washed every sweater I owned. In the future I would not do this again as I did not have enough room to dry them all at one time and did not have sweaters to wear during the process.
3. Load sweaters into mesh bags. My bags were all what I would call "medium" sized. They fit about 3-4 sweaters each, depending on how chunky or fine the knit. Before I loaded my sweaters into the bags I checked every, single, care instruction. Some said hand wash, some said dry clean, if it said "dry clean only" I thought twice, checked back with The Laundress and ultimately used my best judgement. Also, make sure all of your sweaters are inside out! Especially if they have embellishment.
4. Load up the washing machine. My five mesh bags filled the washer nicely with enough room for them to float around without getting crushed.
5. I set the washer on cold and delicate cycle. These two things are key to successfully machine washing sweaters. (Keep reading to find out why you should use cold! Ugh!) I let the washer fill up and kept the lid open. If you watch, the sweaters will float up on top of the water. I put on rubber gloves (the water was freezing!) and as the washer filled up, pushed the sweaters underwater.
6. Instead of using The Laundress' sweater wash (I was too impatient to order, wait, then wash) I went on the advice of a friend and washed my sweaters with Johnson's Baby Shampoo. I keep some in the house because it is so gentle. (I once had an eye doctor recommend using it to wash off eye makeup! Works like a charm!) Once the washer was full I squeezed some shampoo into the washer. I was nervous to use too much because I did not want the agitation to foam up the shampoo and make a mess. If you use the delicate cycle, you'll be fine; baby shampoo does not create too much lather.
7. As soon as the cycle is over, pull your sweaters out of the washer. Air dry all sweaters. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT, put your sweaters in the dryer. If you do, be ready to have the best dressed nieces/little cousins. They will come out tiny! I was careful with which sweaters I hung up to dry and which I laid flat to dry. The more delicate fine knit sweaters needed to be laid out, while other loftier knits I could hang on a drying rack (and even a hanger when I ran out of space!) The Laundress website recommended laying each sweater out on a towel and rolling it up to pull out the excess water. I found that my washer's spin cycle got most of the water out so I did not use this step very much.
8. Be patient. Some of my cashmere sweaters took a few days to dry. Most of my fine knit merino sweaters were done over night. With some of my sweaters I had to turn them inside out again after the first day. The outside would be dry and the inside still wet. Patience is key.
9. This is totally optional - steam or iron sweaters. I love things wrinkle free and after coming out of the washer, a lot of sweaters hold on to wrinkles. I have better luck ironing merino on the wool setting with a lot of steam (be gentle and keep the iron moving) and steaming cashmere while it hangs. These two things can take a lot of time. I like to do this over the weekend or the night before I know I will need to wear them (see: the art of planning outfits).
Now...what happens when one of these steps goes amiss? Well, that happened to me over the weekend.
I was totally rushing and put a small load of laundry in the washer. I put one of my favorite sweaters into a mesh bag, dropped everything into the washer, ran to take care of something else, came back to the washer later, and started my load like normal forgetting about my sweater! Yikes! I ran the load on Hot/Cold. A day or so later, my husband went to change the laundry over, wasn't sure how long the load had been in there and ran it through again! On hot/cold! Double Yikes! When I heard the washer finish up I grabbed my non-dryer items out and found my sweater bag at the bottom. My stomach dropped through the floor. My beloved sweater could fit a 4th grader. Trying to be resourceful (and let's face it, my sweater is a couple years old and I couldn't find another for sale online) I again turned to Google. I found a site with tons of suggestions on how to reverse my damage. The important thing is not to let the sweater dry that size. Here's what I did...
1. I read that soaking the sweater in lukewarm water with conditioner will help to loosen up the fibers. I filled a big Tupperwear bowl with cool water, let it sit to get to room temperature, and squirted in some conditioner. The conditioner may look like little blobs floating in the water. Don't worry, that will work itself out.
2. I grabbed my sweater and dunked it in and out of the water. The conditioner broke up and dispersed into the water and the sweater. Immediately I could feel a difference in the fibers of the sweater. It was like magic.
3. While the sweater was soaking I slowly started to stretch it out. Wool is very durable (I talked to my mom who is a big knitter and she clued me in). It is really hard to tear wool, so its okay to give it a stretch.
4. I let the sweater soak for about a half hour. Meanwhile I cleaned out the kitchen sink thoroughly. Once the half hour was up I dumped out the conditioner water, and rinsed the sweater under cool water to get the conditioner out. When rinsing, be careful not to let the conditioner suds up. I filled the bowl back up with water and dipped then gently squeezed out the conditioner and water.
5. Once I finished rinsing I gently squeezed the water out of the sweater. I grabbed my husband and had him help me stretch the sweater. He took the bottom I took the top and we started to pull. In between I would hold the sweater up to myself to see how much further we needed to go. We each pulled the arms of the sweater. Be careful to hold the sweater at the wrists and the shoulders. You don't want to stretch the shoulders too much. Keep checking to make sure that all seams and sleeves line up to as close as "normal" as possible.
6. Once I felt my sweater was stretched back to where I could wear it again (at 5'10" it was a lot of stretching!), I laid the flat on the top of a towel. I folded the bottom half of the towel up over the sweater (a towel sweater sandwich if you will). I then tightly rolled the sweater up in the towel and twisted it tight. Hold it for a minute or two. You will feel the water soak into the towel. Its kind of cool how much absorbs so quickly.
7. Next I took the sweater out of the towel and laid it flat to dry on a clean, dry towel. I reshaped the sweater to a normal shape, stretched it a bit more for good measure, and let it air dry. I checked back on it a few times to make sure that in drying it didn't shrink back up.
Its not back to how it was, but it is wearable again. I am confident that with some wear and some more stretching it will be back to normal.
Remember sweater-lovers, don't dry clean or donate until you have exhausted all of your options. Always Google...someone out there has had this happen to them too and most likely, there are bloggers out there happy to post their tips!
