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Soak the sweater in water for 5 minutes. Squeeze suds through fabric and remove any soil. Never pull, stretch or twist the fabric while cleaning. Rinse all the soap out of the fabric and gently squeeze out much of the water.
Then take the damp sweather and lay it between two towels. Roll up the sweater and towels like you would a bed roll. You may need to do this a couple times. Then you will want to lay out the sweater to dry. Make sure the sweater is back to its natural shape before you set it out to dry because it will dry in whatever shape you leave it in. If you hang dry wool sweaters they will stretch so dry it flat.
By Lee-Ann (Guest Post)
07/22/2004
I've also heard about using shampoo, it will naturally soften the fibers.
We used to do a lot more hand washing of fine fabrics, including delicate lingerie and nice sweaters, than anyone does today. I grew up doing laundry the old-fashioned way for the most part, but today, I use the convenience of automatic washer and dryer for everything except nice sweaters and delicate clothing, which I still treat the way my mother taught us to do.
Wash in mild soap and cool water, rinse well, and either dry on hangers, line dry, use gentle cycle of dryer, or flat-dry on towels. Although those things may have changed a little over the years, we still rinse the same old way to get the sweetest smelling and softest sweaters. The final rinse should have some Tone or other sweet smelling bath soap rubbed into the water. Not much, just a little bit to slightly cloud the water is fine.
Rinse the hand washed items, and place on several thicknesses of dry towels (pay attention to the colors you're using) and allow to dry flat. We use the tops of washer and dryer for this. If you roll the wet clothing in a dry towel first, but do not twist, just gently squeeze out all the water possible before laying them out onto dry towels, you'll find your clothing will stay looking like brand new and retain their lovely colors for as long as you treat them this way.
There are a few tricks our grandmothers and mothers used that no technology is going to make better, and this is one of them.
Source: My Mother and every other lady I knew when I was a child.
By Julia from Boca Raton, FL
Shared on: 06/27/2011
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