Wool suiting

[Magot]

OK carbonated water I can go with - thanks - slightly acidic. Soda water.
I imagine chocolate is a fat stain - so wouldn't you use detergent to get it out?

[Sancin]

The detergent would need to have some sort of degreaser in it. I don't know what that is, but there are pretreatment products available - shout comes to mind. I can't think of the correct name but as a science person you would know - any type of surfactant . I would blot it first with an absorbant cloth or paper, if it hasn't been touched all ready to blot out as much 'fat' as possible. But just touch it, don't rub in.

Gosh, from all this discussion it looks like all I do is clean. I wish.

[kaitlinnegan]

Sorry I haven't replied to this thread in a while -- Andrea, I do find the imagine of rasta sheep quite hilarious. I think what I'll do is wash the fabric in the machine for the first wash, but then wash the garments by hand. Thanks for the help everyone!

[Longblades]

Here is what I learned when dyeing a pure wool sweater. I consulted the local knitter's guild and several websites.

Some fabrics will shrink when you WET them, no matter what temperature or washing solution you use. Cotton or wool, if the fibre was stretched during processing it will relax back into it's natural state once it gets wet and dries, thus shrinking. We cannot tell which fabrics these are, generally, but can compensate a bit by stretching the garment periodically as it dries. Like me, I bet many of you do this with your jeans and cords.

Temperature SHOCK is what shrinks many fibres, especially wool. You can safely wash most wool in hot water if you make very sure to also rinse it in hot water. Because wool is harder to dye than many other fibres and in addition I was dyeing my sweater red (see other post on setting colour) the instructions said to use the hottest tap water possible and I freaked out and contacted the knitters guild. The sweater is fine, but it's fuschia, not red. OK by me. This is the same reason you should rinse your hair with the same temp. water as you wash it. If you are naturally curly like me you will get frizz if you don't.

Special washing agents for wool are more to preserve the natural oils in the wool than to prevent shrinkage.

Agitation is the culprit that really makes most fibres shrink and felt up. Fibres get pushed together and they sort of stick. Keep agitation as low as possible. Soaking instead is good if you can get away with it, but remember to watch the temperature and not let the water cool too much or too quickly. If it cools remember to rinse with temperature the same as what the garment or fabric was in last.

Flat air drying is best. It involves no agitation and guards against too abrupt a temperature change. But hanging to dry is OK with things like jeans where you want to guard against the legs shrinking up.

If you want to felt something, like the thrift store sweaters I'm turning into mittens, you would wash hot, rinse cold, machine dry and use lots of agitation.

And after all that it's best if you can test a sample first.