One of the stops I make when I go into town to do the weekly shopping is at a thrift store. I have a list of things I’m always on the lookout for, and one of those items is wool sweaters. And about once a month, I’ll get lucky and bring home a wool sweater for someone or something. The “someone” could be anyone in the family. I only find one of those sweaters about every three months. The “something” is a sweater that is somehow damaged but could be repurposed.
It doesn’t take that long to go through the thrift store holding of sweaters each week—after a while, you get a feel for the wool and you can tell pretty quickly whether a sweater is wool by the feel. Anyway, as I was going through the sweaters about two months ago, I came upon a very soft, beautiful blue-gray and white double knit was meant to be worn as a base layer. Really nice. And the label indicated it was 100% extra-fine merino wool. Score.
Unfortunately, it was obvious there at the store that this sweater had shrunk. But I held it up against my body and it didn’t look too small. The wheels started turning. I had read an article somewhere about how to unshrink a wool sweater. For $3, I thought it was worth a try. If it didn’t work out, there were other projects this wool sweater could be used on.
The process for unshrinking a wool sweater is pretty straightforward.
- Begin by soaking the sweater for 30-90 minutes in a solution of 2 tablespoons of baby shampoo or fabric softener and a couple gallons of cool water.
- Rinse in cool water and squeeze the water from the sweater without wringing or twisting it.
- Lay the sweater flat on a thick towel and roll it up to squeeze even more water out.
- Then gently begin stretching the sweater back to its original size.
As I didn’t know what the sweater originally looked like and I wanted to just make it bigger, I got out the blocking boards (foam mats) I use to finish the sweaters I knit and the T-pins to hold the sweaters in place and started stretching and pinning. The first soak and dry netted me about an inch or so increase in size. It was enough to be able to put it on, but it was skin tight. No good.
Some of the helpful instructions online suggest to repeat the process if necessary to achieve the size desired. Others say that a wool sweater can’t be resized. Truth be told, a whole lot depends on the temperature of the water and the dryer and how long the sweater was agitated at those higher temperatures. It’s a very individual thing. A sweater that has truly felted down in size is not going to be restored to its original size. No way, no how. Your results will be much better if the sweater hasn’t been allowed to dry.
Anyway, I tried again and was able to get another inch. It’s still a fairly tight fit, but it will work for a base layer in cold weather. I think I’ll keep it.
However, if I change my mind, and for when you come across wool sweaters and wonder how they can be used for practical preparedness purposes (as opposed to the lampshade and wine bottle sweaters, among other ridiculous items), here you go:
And while all of these projects can be done with non-wool sweaters, wool is just a warmer fiber.
Mittens are a project I’ve done a few times with thrift store finds. They use primarily the body of the sweater, but sometimes you can use the arms of larger sweaters. You can make these as simple or complex as you wish. Some folks go all out and line the mittens with fleece and then stuff them a bit as well so that they’re toasty warm, but then they’re too cumbersome to be able to do anything practical while wearing them. Here’s a site for the directions and pattern pieces. They take a little time—not much—and are definitely faster than knitting.
Hats can also be made from the body of the sweater.
Arm warmers and leg warmers can be made from the arms of the sweater.
Some people create beautiful scarves from their old sweaters, but that isn’t one of my favorite uses for wool. I sometimes find it a little irritating around my neck, so I always opt for alpaca and angora in my scarves.
As I was searching online for other practical uses for old wool sweaters, I came across some really beautiful blankets. Unfortunately, it takes a while to get that many sweaters together to make a blanket, but it would definitely be worth it. I so wish I had some of my husband’s sweaters that we tossed long ago.
And in case you were wondering about practical purposes for the smaller scraps from sweaters, I’ve got you covered there. More on that in another post.
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