How To Stretch A Woolen Item If It Has Shrunk, What To Do To Restore Its Previous Shape And Size

2024 Author: Bailey Albertson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 12:53

How to stretch any woolen garment that shrinks after washing

Woolen products practically do not wrinkle, retain heat, are resistant to dirt and quickly "ventilate" from various odors. With all its unique properties, wool has a significant disadvantage - it can shrink at the slightest violation of the washing technology. If we want to have things made of this material in our wardrobe and wear them for a long time, we need to be able to wash them so as not to stretch the products, as well as know how to restore the shape of damaged clothes.

Content

• 1 Why does a woolen thing shrink

• 2 Versatile ways to rescue shrunken wool products

  • 2.1 How to restore the original size of a thing if it has sat down
  • 2.2 How to enlarge a blended sweater with an iron
  • 2.3 How to stretch a shrunken wool sweater using hair conditioner - video
• 3 How to stretch pants
• 4 How to restore the former appearance and size of a shrunken coat
• 5 Method for restoring a hat that has become small after washing
• 6 What can be done with shrunken socks and mittens
• 7 Wool jacket that has shrunk - stretch it on the carpet
• 8 Proper care of deforming things

Why does a woolen thing shrink

There are several known reasons for this trouble:

1. Delicate fabrics, which include wool in the first place, require a special temperature regime during washing. The optimum water temperature is 30 ° C. The hotter the water, the more likely the product will shrink.
2. The second reason is the wrong detergent. Wool is never washed with ordinary powder: the alkali contained in it destroys the fibers, they coarse and shrink, as a result the product is deformed.
3. Machine wash without a special program will damage the woollens. In addition to the fact that the jacket or hat shrinks in size, the fibers of the fabric can be matted, as a result of which the thing will look like a felt one.

Most of all, when washing, fabrics made from natural materials - wool, cotton and their mixtures - shrink.

Sheep wool is most often used for the production of woolen fabric.

Versatile ways to rescue shrunken woollens

This is a rhetorical question, since there are too many "variables" in this problem that affect the answer. Sometimes it is quite easy to stretch the product, sometimes it is impossible. It depends:

• on the degree of shrinkage;
• on the composition of the fabric (pure wool or blended);
• from the applied methods of "resuscitation".

How to return an item to its original size if it has shrunk

If the thing hasn't sat down strongly, then you can stretch it in the following way:

• soak the product in cool water for 15 minutes;
• take out and squeeze slightly without twisting;
• lay a large towel on the table and spread the sweater on it.

By correctly spreading the item to dry, you will get rid of the need to iron it later.

Natural wool is very hygroscopic (absorbs moisture well), so be prepared for the drying process to take a day. During this time, change the wet towel to a dry one and periodically stretch the affected product with your hands in the directions you need.

Since wool dries slowly, it can be tempting to speed up this process. Never use a heater, hair dryer, battery placement or other express methods. All this will only hurt.

When shaping a sweater, make sure that after stretching it does not turn out to be deformed in width

How to enlarge a blended sweater with an iron

For sweaters and other blended items, steaming is suitable.

1. Spread a clean sheet on the ironing board and spread the product over it.
2. Steam it with an iron through damp gauze, stretching with your free hand to shape the sleeves and length at the bottom.

If a jumper or blouse is dear to you, then take note of one more method that can be called extreme. It consists in putting on a wet thing on yourself and walking in it until it dries. In the process of this "natural" drying, you should try to pull up the sleeves and the bottom edge of the product in order to stretch them along their length. The good thing about this method is that the impressions from the drying process are guaranteed to lead to a lasting assimilation of the rules for washing woolen things: you will not want to repeat.

How to stretch a shrunken wool sweater with hair conditioner - video

How to stretch pants

If shrinkage has occurred along the length, then it is not difficult to correct the situation.

1. To stretch the pants, you need to hang a load on them. The easiest way to do this is to use two clip-on trouser hangers.
2. Squeeze lightly to prevent dripping and hang on the rope at the top (where the belt is).

3. Soak the garment for 15 minutes in cold water.

   

   To increase the length of the shrunken trousers, fasten the upper part of the product securely to the rope, and hang the load to the bottom.

4. Tuck the hem of each pant leg into the clip, and hook something to the hanging hook for weight. Leave to dry completely.

How to return a shrunken coat to its former look and size

Hardly anyone would dare to wash their expensive cashmere coat on their own. That is why we are talking about relatively small children's products made of mixed coat fabric. It is they who most often suffer from the inaccuracy of the baby and the inexperience of the mother. Washing a dirty coat in a car is a simple matter, but most often this method leads to the fact that the clothes go to the neighbor's child, who is a couple of years younger. You can still try to bring the coat back to life.

1. First you need to soak the thing in such a solution: 2 tablespoons of hydrogen peroxide per 10 liters of cold water.
2. Keep the product in it for two hours. The peroxide will help the fibers become more elastic.
3. While the coat is soaking, gently stretch it with your hands.
4. After completing the water treatment, lightly squeeze the material and lay on a towel to dry. As you already know, towels should be periodically changed to dry ones, and the thing itself should be continued to stretch with your hands until it is completely dry.

Clothes made of wool will be the size of a child for a long time, if you learn how to properly wash, dry and stretch shrunken clothes

A method for restoring a hat that has become small after washing

The easiest way to restore the size of a woolen hat is to pull it over a three-liter jar. Before that, it must be soaked in cold water for a few minutes.

After soaking, place the hat on the upside-down jar and let it dry naturally, away from heat sources. If there is no jar at home, dry the hat directly on your head, wearing a shower cap under it.

After drying a shrunken wool hat on a three-liter jar, you can return it to its shape and size

What to do with shrunken socks and mittens

Such an attack is doubly unpleasant if it happens in a fierce winter, and the socks or mittens that have shrunk after washing are the only ones. To help grief, you will need:

• vinegar;
• spray;
• many newspapers;
• any sturdy clips or clothespins.

Instructions:

1. Soak things in water (you can add hair balm).
2. Stretch them slightly with your hands.
3. Remove and squeeze without twisting.
4. Sprinkle wet items with vinegar from a spray bottle.
5. Place more wrinkled newspapers inside and pinch the edges of the cuffs with clothespins to prevent the newspapers from falling out. The paper will sometimes need to be changed, and the more often you can do this, the faster it will dry out. The vinegar smell disappears pretty quickly.

Vinegar and crumpled newspapers will help to restore the shape and size of mittens or wool socks.

Shrink Wool Jacket - Stretch it on the carpet

To reliably and safely stretch the jacket without losing its shape, we will use the "grandmother's" method. For him you need a solution of the following ingredients:

• 5 liters of cold water;
• 5 tablespoons of ammonia;
• 1 tablespoon of turpentine;
• 1 tablespoon of cologne

Operating procedure:

1. Soak the damaged product for an hour and a half in the solution.
2. Rinse in clean water at the same temperature and squeeze out a little.
3. Baste the jacket against a piece of heavy fabric. To do this, spread a cloth on the table - a tablecloth folded in 4 layers of sheets, a terry towel. Lay the jacket over the fabric, stretch it with your hands and start sewing it along the contour to the fabric below. Sew the stitches in 2 cm increments. While you are sewing, adjust the position of the jacket all the time.
4. Stretch the fabric to which the jacket is sewn over the frame (as indicated in the original recipe). In modern realities, you can do it easier: lay out the fabric with a jacket on a cleaned carpet and attach it with pins, pulling tightly. This will require an assistant to hold the fabric taut while you pin it to the carpet.
5. Dry your jacket like this.

Precautions:

• the method is categorically not suitable if there are small children or playful animals in the house;
• count and write down the number of pins used: you must collect the same number later.

Proper care of deforming things

Deformed (shrunken and stretched) things require even more careful handling than ordinary woolen products.

1. Wash them only with your hands, gently wiping them in water, do not twist, squeezing, but dry only on a towel.
2. Things that are well laid out to dry, as a rule, do not need ironing, and if this is still necessary, then iron through cheesecloth, without steam.

It is recommended to dry wool products flattened

In order not to have to stretch shrunken clothes, remember the simple rules for washing wool:

• recommended water temperature - no higher than 30 ° C;
• use a special gel-like detergent for washing wool products, but if it is not available, then hair shampoo will do;
• do not rub the fabric or twist it during the push-up, so as not to stretch the fibers;
• dry flat without hanging;
• do not use additional heating during drying and do not dry on a battery.

The quality mark of wool is marked with a special marking

Wool is environmentally friendly, useful, worthy and valuable at all times. Now she is experiencing a new peak in popularity. And although new tools and technologies have appeared that allow you to gently wash things from it in a typewriter, clothes are often deformed and reduced in size. You can fix this using the tips from the article. Wear woolen garments with pleasure and care for them properly.