How do you wash a felted sweater?

Thinking of buying or putting a felted design on a sweater, but worried you won't be able to wash it? Worry not, felted designs are machine washable! However, you need to make sure the base sweater is also machine washable. Sometimes alpaca sweaters or certain types of wool shrink very easily, and can't handle the machine. If you're buying a sweater from me, I'll indicate if it's machine washable or not. Note: even though felting is machine safe, handwashing is preferable because it's more gentle! Although, I admit I machine wash all my OWN felted clothes because I'm lazy (aka, I never have time and I'm doing too much.)

Washing instructions:

Turn your garment inside out. If it's a jacket, button it up backwards. For extra protection, you can also put it in a garment bag. Set your machine to the gentlest setting you have. If you have a hand wash setting or a wool setting, use that. Make sure the machine is set to cold water.  Note: If you set it on a warm or hot setting, the design may shrink and become very bumpy. As long as your sweater is iron safe, you can fix this by ironing on a wool, steam setting until your design becomes flat again.

I've found that alpaca and certain wool sweaters need a distilled white vinegar bath after being washed with soap (in the machine or not.) This helps make the sweater softer and get rid of any residual soap. You'll know your sweater needs to be rinsed with vinegar if it feels as if there is a residue on it, or it's more scratchy than normal. Let your sweater soak in a bowl of water with a splash of vinegar for at least 20min.

If you choose to hand wash, you can use the spin cycle on your washing machine and/or roll up your sweater in a thick towel to remove excess water.

After your sweater is dry, iron it on a wool, steam setting. This will help to further compress the fibers, and make sure your sweater is wrinkle free!!

Let me know if you have any questions :)

A felted barn owl sweater I made for my dad!