How To Take Care of a Hand Knit Wool Sweater
For many of us knitters, wool is our BFF during the fall and winter months. We reach for our wool garments time and time again to keep us warm and cozy. However, with wearing comes caring. Our hand knit wool garments require special care to keep us cozy for many cold seasons to come. In this blog post, let’s chat about how to take care of our woolen knits to keep them (and us) happy for as long as possible.
Please note that this post contains some affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking one of these links, I get some yarn money at no extra cost to you!
1.Don’t wash after every wear
As we talked about in this blog post about cool wool facts, wool is naturally antibacterial and, as a result of being antibacterial, it is also naturally odor-resistant. Because of these magical properties of wool, you don’t need to wash your wool garments every time you wear them!
When it comes to sweaters, you can wear them up to 5 times before needing to wash them. However, if you wear a shirt underneath them or don’t get them very dirty, you can even go beyond 5 wears. For socks, you can get 2-3 full day wears out of them before washing (and some people go even longer!). If you don’t want to wash your wool garment but want to give it a little refresh, you can let it air outside or give it a gentle steam. Simply letting your wool garment hang in the bathroom while you take a shower is a great way to give it some rejuvenation!
2. Hand wash with gentle detergent
When it comes time to actually wash your wool garment, you can consult the yarn’s care instructions. However, if you don’t have that handy, hand washing in cold water with a gentle, wool-friendly, detergent is usually a safe bet. I am a big fan of Eucalan’s detergent. They have great scents, and even no scents!
Superwash wools and wool blends may be machine-washable. If that’s the case, consult the care instructions for that yarn. If you don’t have the care instructions, you can typically get by using a wool, hand wash, or delicate setting with cold water. You may also want to wash your wool alone or with like-colored knits in case the dye leaks into the water.
How to wash and block your knits!
3. How to remove pills
Pilling occurs when the wool fibers meet friction and often happens the most at the beginning of a wool garment’s life. This is because the fibers within the spun wool are of different lengths, and as friction is applied to the fibers, the smaller fibers separate from the longer fibers and pill.
My favorite method to remove pills is to gently use a fabric shaver over your wool garment’s surface. I use this Conair fabric shaver, and its comes in super cute colors! (I have the green one!) You can use a fabric shaver any time, but I especially like to use it before washing so that the pills don’t become more ingrained through the washing process.
4. Give your mohair a brush
Overtime, the fluffy halo of mohair can become matted and tangled, leaving the fabric not as soft or as pretty. To help with restore its ~luster~, you can brush it out! Check out this nifty video on brushing mohair that shows you how to do just that.
5. Avoid pesky moths
Moths like to eat away at your sweater’s yummy wool fibers, and they mainly show up to feast when you’re storing your handmade knits for a period of time (like during the warm summer months). The wool itself attracts them, but so does perspiration, crumbs, or stains that may be left on them.
To avoid moths, be sure to wash your knits before storing them. You can always store your knits with moth balls, which kill moth larvae with their toxic chemicals. However, those toxic chemicals also aren’t great for humans. If you’re looking for a more natural alternative, you can store your knits with herbal sachets filled with rosemary, mint, thyme, cloves, or lavender. The herbs don’t kill the larvae like moth balls do, but their strong scents cover the attractive scents of wool.
If you suspect you have moths, you can try to get rid of them by:
Washing your garment and letting it dry in the sun. Direct (and even indirect) sun exposure helps to kill the larvae.
Place your garment in the freezer for about a week. The cold should kill off the larvae and eggs.
Wearing your hand knit wool sweater feels awesome. Keep that feeling alive for years to come by taking care of your wool sweater properly! Do you have any tips for taking care of wool that I missed? Comment them below!