washing handknits....help!

[JessaJackOLantern]

Have st-r-e-t-ched one of ds's recently acquired and very lovely hand knitted jumpers....I popped it in the washing machine on a 40 delicate wash along with other clothes...how do I avoid turning all his jumpers into long floppy shadows of their former selves?

Do you have a handwash cycle on your machine? Not delicate or gentle spin cycle, but an actual handwash cycle? I've got one on my machine, and it's ace. Check out your programmes, you might have one.

...I do...it is even listed under "wool"......ho hum...at least the nice almost-aran style jumper's demise wasn't in vain!!

And tbh, ds will still have to wear it, it just needs the sleeves rolling up...alot...

1. You can maybe fix the "broken" jumper, you just need to reshape it, when wet.

1. If the sleeves are the problem, it may not have been the washing that was the problem, but the fact you hung it up to dry . I'm guessing here ...

1. How you wash handknits has a lot to do with what they're made out of ....

It came out of the machine all stretched...all the stretchiness of the knit has gone (like when knicker elastic goes iykwim!![grin}I didn't tumble dry it, but did hang it up figuring that it was already closer to being a fishing net than a jumper anyway (I would usually dry them as flat as I can)
I have a small pile awaiting washing now...most are acrylic or acrylic mix wool and a couple are 'proper' wool.

Hmm, normally when a wool jumper goes wrong from being washed wrong, it gets felted, which means it gets much much smaller and thicker, iyswim. Oh, it might have gone stretchy from the spin cycle?

At any rate, you can tug things back into shape, or at least try. It's called "blocking" - if the sleeves are too long, you might manage to shorten them by tugging them to make them wider, iyswim.

I'd handwash the proper wool. Full acrylic should be fine to be machine-washed, the blend should be ok on the handwash cycle.

Thanks both...I'll handwash the precious ones, use the handwash cycle for the rest, and give the 'victim' a good tug next time it's washed.