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Tuesday, March 20, 2012

5 Magic Awesome Reasons to Sew With Wool! (+ 2 Ways to Wash It)

Wool: sexy, hypnotic and magical! Don't be scared!

So last night I was leisurely handwashing the soft, blue and luscious Christian Dior doubleknit wool fabric I'm using for my Mad Men Challenge dress in a basin of tepid water and Eucalan...

Christian Dior blue wool doubleknit

And as I squeezed it very gently with my hands, that delicious lanolin smell wafted up to my nostrils and I thought: "Wow! I can't believe I ever was afraid of wool!"

In fact, before I started knitting with better-quality soft merino wools (thanks to the inspiring words of Elizabeth Zimmerman and The Yarn Harlot), I not only feared handwashing wool garments, I thought I was actually allergic to the stuff.* I even sought out acrylic and cotton yarns OVER wool. For real!

So in case you are still struggling with wool-o-phobia, I present (in random, arbitrary, unscientific fashion):

5 Reasons I Love Working With Wool

  1. It keeps you warm but lets your skin breathe.
  2. It resists odors, stains and bacteria, and rarely needs cleaning.
  3. Wool kicks water to the curb and keeps you toasty and dry, absorbing up to 30 percent of its weight in water before even feeling wet. This is why I wear wool socks almost every day (except in the summer).

    Mikhaela's Mixed Up Monkey Socks
  4. It comes in gazillions of beautiful colors and weights and styles to suit any taste. Slinky sexy soft merino wool jerseys, nubbly gorgeous sturdy tweeds and plaids, thin tropical wools, flattering drapey crepes...
  5. It has amazing springiness and recovery and takes fabulously to pressing and steaming and shaping and fitting and tailoring (see Joan photo at top--do you think cotton can do that? I don't think so!)

Bonus Reasons For Crafty Mamas to Love Wool

  1. Wool makes baby pee vanish. Like magic! Wool diaper soakers make the best cloth diaper covers because the lanolin in the wool does some weird tricky thing that actually just makes the urine go away as it dries. Really! (Not that I'm going to let Z pee on my Mad Men dress, mind you.) When Z was a newborn, I used the awesome and quick Sheepy Soaker pattern to make the below:

    IMG_4656
  2. Wool fights embarrassing breastmilk leaks. I ONLY wear merino wool nursing pads (which I could have made easily, but bought--mine are LanaCare and OnGuard brands). I have a few pairs, and one dries while the other is in use. They are soft, warm, absorbent and dry, fight bacteria and don't feel cold and clammy, and can be easily handwashed as necessary.

2 Ways to Wash Wool

  1. Handwash with gentle wool wash and tepid water. I use this method for all handknits and all my wool sweaters and wool knit tops. It's SO easy. Seriously. Just: fill a basin with tepid water, add a dash of wool wash (the real gentle lanolin-containing kind, like Eucalan, not Woolite or any harsh chemical ones) gently squeeze through, let soak 15 minutes, roll gently in a towel to remove excess water, lay flat to dry. DONE. No rinsing required!
  2. Pam's Dry-Clean-free Fast & Easy pre-treatment method. I haven't tried this yet, but many sewists swear by it, and I love that no dry cleaner is required! Though I'm not clear on whether occasional dry-cleaning would still be required once a garment is actually worn--my guess is yes.

And as they used to say on Reading Rainbow, don't just take my word for it!

Nothing beats wool. It's an extraordinary material—annually renewable and recyclable—with infinite potential. It can be wispy and sensual when it wants to be, it can be gruff and powerful, it can put out fires and keep families warm at night, it can be stepped on, sat under, rained on, and wrapped up in again and again.
--Clara Parkes, author of The Knitter's Book of Wool

So: do you fear--or embrace--wool? And why? What's your favorite source for buying wool fabric?

*Mohair, on the other hand--that stuff turns my skin bright red in SECONDS. Yowch!

20 comments:

  1. I love wool too. It's so easy to sew with (with steam, anything is possible) and wear. I usually dry clean my wool wovens but I like washing my wool sweaters by hand with a mild shampoo. I figure it's just like hair...

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  2. Ok, I did not know all of that. Fun stuff!

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    1. I just gave you a sunshine award because I think your blog is fab. No worries if you are not interested in playing along. Just wanted to let you know.

      http://lizajanesews.blogspot.com/2012/03/sunshine.html

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  3. OK, I'm totally with you on mohair - but I also love wool. Wool yarn makes me want to retch when it's wet, so I just hold my nose. But I have to admit, I'm still kind of scared to wash wool fabric. I'm afraid of felting (even with handwash, stupidly) and of the fabric's hand changing. Mind you, I just got over my fear of handwashing silk. I'll never dryclean that stuff again. So there's hope for me.

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    1. I don't know about handwashing woven wools--my experience is with knits. ( I also have some experience hand dying wool yarns ). But felting is pretty easy to avoid if you're careful-- it requires a combination of heat, damp and agitation. Heat alone is fine-- which is why I immediately stick any wool thrift store purchases in the hot dry dryer cycle for 60 minutes to kill off potential bed bugs.

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    2. OMG - why have I never thought of doing that. I live in the second bed buggiest place in the world - I think. Only second to NYC :-)

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  4. Mmmm, wool... I'm wearing my very favorite in the world pants right at this moment. They are wool (which is why they are my favorite - they aren't actually my best fitting pair), and I was thinking just this morning how awesome wool is, as I scraped snow and ice off my car. I was so grateful for my wool pants!!

    Don't tell - they have a smidge of rayon in them and I just throw them in the washer. No felting after many abusive trips through the wash. Whew. Most of my woolies I hand wash in Eucalan though. Love that stuff.

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  5. I like this post because I really, really (no you don't understand) really love wool. I use Pam's wool pretreatment method with much success, and yours sounds good too. Where could I get that Eucalan product?

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  6. yeah for wool!! It's fabulous, isn't it. I knit, but I have yet to sew with wool. I need to do something about that!

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  7. A dash of dish detergent is actually the best wool wash you can use, and cheap too :-). Of course better without too much color or perfume, but that's true for your dishes too. Or shampoo, but that's more likely to have tons of additives.

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    1. I'm surprised by that -- wouldn't dish detergent strip the lanolin? I'd love more info if you have it!

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  8. I'm wool's biggest fan! I love it and prefer sewing with wool over many other fabrics!!

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  9. I love wool! It's so easy to sew, and pressing it is such a joy. Every time I see those happy flat seams, smelling so endearingly of dirty sheep, I want to jump and tell the other fibers that THAT'S what they should aspire to look like.

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  10. I LOVE wool! Love working with it, love wearing it. I never knew about the magical disappearing pee-and-breastmilk properties of wool, though - that is awesome! Something to keep in mind if i ever become a mother :)

    A question - when you hand wash knit wool sweaters (like, hand knit, not machine knit)... do you have to reblock them every time? Or does the first block take care of that forever? I've been wondering what to do with my sweater once I finally finish it. I don't wanna block over & over if I don't have to! :)

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    1. It's my understanding that you only need to block (with pins and all that jazz) the first time. After that, just gently handwash and lay flat to dry.

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  11. I love your little Reading Rainbow inclusion. . . My sisters and I loved that show when we were growing up! Especially when they showed a book we owned!

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  12. I love wool too! It's cool in warm weather, warm in cool weather, and keeps you dry (AND neutralizes your baby's pee). Genius sheep!

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  13. Oh man, the smell of wool under an iron is DELICIOUS. Love sewing with wool. I bought a lightweight herringbone that I am considering experimenting with for a summer dress. I've not worn wool in summer but it seems theoretically possible.

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  14. I LOVE wool. Really, I'm a natural fiber lover.

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  15. I love that wool is so warm when wet. When I was learning to scuba dive in the cold Pacific Ocean off the coast of CA I wore wool socks under my dive booties. Super toasty feet the entire time!

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