Why Do Sweaters Shrink in the First Place?
Sweaters, especially those made from natural fibers like wool and cashmere, need special care. Heat, agitation, and moisture—AKA the trifecta of the washing machine—can cause fibers to contract and tighten, making your once-roomy sweater feel stiff, small, and misshapen. Even tossing it into the dryer for a few minutes can spell disaster.
What Really Happens When a Sweater Shrinks?
Your fibers have reacted to the heat, agitation and water and have begun to lock onto each other. As the fibers continue to rub against each other the agitation causes the fibers to grip onto each other more and more. How?
This is able to happen because of the construction of knitted fabrics.
Knit fabric is made of interlocking loops and the space that the loop creates provides stretch and elasticity to the fabric. This is why knitted fabric is the most beloved fabric construction-why? Because it moves with you in 4 directions when you wear it.
Back to the shrinking-As it spins around in the hot and wet environment the space in all the interlocking loops starts to shrink and the fabric gets tighter and tighter as the elasticity is agitated away through compression
Unshrink Sweater: Is It Even Possible?
What can be done will depend on how much of the knit loop space has been compressed. If the fabric has been so agitated that there is not longer any room left in each loop nothing can be done. The fibers have permanently locked and all the tricks that the internets love to serve up to you cannot undo that.
Can My Shrunken Sweater Still Be Saved?
We hope not! This is where a knowledgeable assessment is key. If you hold the garment up to the light and you cannot see through it and it has completely lost its elasticity I.e. you cant stretch it. Its time to let it go.
If you can see through the fabric and it can be stretched in 4 directions it might be able to be blocked back into shape. However this will not be the case for ALL garments so don’t get excited yet!
Can Alterknit help me? I don’t know what I’m doing.
Possibly and we would love to help. Heres one method you can try at home, Your chances of making it worse are slim to none at this point so go ahead do a pre-test at home!
Place your sweater in a sink filled with cold water. As cold as possible. Get it soaking wet without agitating it. And let it hang out there for 10 minutes. You can add a mild shampoo or detergent but its not essential.
Take it out and gently squeeze out as much water as you can. DO NOT wring it. And you want to leave a little water in there as it will help with the next step. Place a large bath towel on a table/counter or on your floor and lay the garment flat on it. Now before rolling it in the towel start to stretch out the sleeves and body in four directions using small sections at a time. Take your time doing this as you want to find as much area that might be remaining in all the loops. Once you have done that you can gently roll up the sweater to remove the excess water..but please do not over do this! It being a little wet is good here. Now its time to wait and let it dry.
Last thing- if you are comfortable you can instead of laying it out to dry on a towel put the garment on after you have gently squeezed the water out and see while it is on you ( assuming you can still put it on) if you can stretch it to the length and width you want it to be. If you can once you stretched it while wearing it, then you can gently take it off and place it on a towel and let it air dry.
When to call a pro?
A garment care specialist has experience in helping you when you want to leave it to an expert. When it has shrunken more than 25% it will be difficult to get it back to the original size but depending on how the garment fit you before you still might be able to wear it! If you are not sure and what an expert-we are are here so give us a call we always want to talk with you!
