I am a believer in not dry cleaning, but recently I washed some Dry Clean Only clothes, in cold water on the gentle cycle, and had some problems with mild shrinking. The pieces didn't shrink a lot, but just enough.
This is probably a silly question, but does anyone know of any real way to un-shrink clothing that has been shrunk? Clothing made of wool, viscose or rayon, which can be very delicate, but not always! Sometimes it turns out fine when washed gently in cold water.
I have heard that soaking the item in cold water with hair conditioner and then stretching it out helps, but maybe nothing really does.
Seems to me that you can get a wool item very wet and then slowly stretch it back to size. After some other reading, the wool will loosen up a bit when you wet it and pull it apart. I want to actually shrink a red wool dress just a tad and will try to wet it and put it in the dryer for a bit. Good luck.
Have you ironed the item? Sometimes washing will shrivel material but once it's ironed, it will flatten and stretch the material back to the original or almost original size.
make a blocking form out of cardboard and contact paper. Soak the item, but don't ring it out. Put it on the form to stretch it back to it's original shape. It sounds like a lot of work, but it's worth it.
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