How to Wash Woolen Garments

Use lukewarm water and powdered soap; wring woolen garments inside a large towel, and spread them out on a sheet of paper on the floor until they dry.

In your wardrobe, madam, and in the wardrobes of your house, there are many woolen garments — yours, your husband's, your brother's, and your children's. No doubt some of them have grown soiled by now, after months of constant wear in these cold days.

I have heard a number of ladies complain of the sorry fate of the woolen sweater after its washing: its sleeves and collar have felted, its colors have faded and run into one another, and it has, in the end, lost its freshness and sheen.

As a service to you, madam, here we offer some observations drawn from their proper source; perhaps they will help you in this task of yours, and you will find the results satisfying if you follow these instructions:

Let the water in which you wash woolen garments be lukewarm, for hot water, like cold, shrinks the woolen thread, and the sweater felts as a result of this shrinkage; its size also grows smaller, and so it becomes tight.

Let the soap you use for washing woolen sweaters be of the flaked or powdered kind, and beware of using a bar of soap rubbed against the sweater, for this too exposes it to shrinking and puckering.

Treat the soiled spots gently and patiently, not with harsh scrubbing; and if you find the sweater still dirty, change its water for fresh, using the same method.

It is of great importance, once the sweater is clean, to rinse it in lukewarm water more than once, to make sure it is free of every trace of soap.

The second stage of this operation comes with the wringing, and this has an art of its own that must be observed to keep the sweater from stretching and losing its original shape. The best way to wring woolen garments is to lay them inside a large towel and roll them up with it, then wring the two together; if the sweater remains wet, it is well to wring it again inside another towel — especially if the piece is of two colors or more, in which case we must double our care and make certain the sweater has become nearly dry.

Then begins the third stage — I mean the stage of spreading out — and this too is of the utmost importance. The best course for the housewife who cares for the clothes of her family is to spread the woolen piece on the floor on a clean sheet of paper, so that it takes its first natural shape. For extra caution, it is well, madam, to trace the outline of the sweater on a large sheet of paper before washing it, and to use this paper when spreading the sweater out, so that its shape matches the drawing exactly; and leave it until it dries.

If the sweater is worked in more than one color, then for extra caution it is well to place a towel inside the sweater, between the front and the back, to keep them from sticking together and their colors from running onto one another.

These recommendations, simple as they are, are enough, madam, to keep your woolen garments in good condition; after washing they will not come out shrunken and felted, or stretched and loose, but will stay exactly as they were, keeping their natural color and sheen.