How to wash your wool

After spending weeks knitting your new jumper or scarf, you’re now faced with a new challenge: how to care for it. We all know that super soft knitwear needs a little extra love when it comes to cleaning, so to make loving easier here’s the WATG care guide. 

Soft, sustainable and classic knitwear is a must for everyone, whether you’ve bought it or spent loving hours knitting it up. With knitting on the rise, it’s important to know how to care for your woollen clothes. All of our wool and alpaca yarns are 100% natural, Mother Nature makes it just the way we like it. Whilst this is great for your wool and the environment, it can make washing a little bit tricky. Now we might not be able to help you when you spill red wine over your Ivory White sweater, but as we are experts in all things woolly, here is a crash course in washing your knits.
1. Fill a clean sink with lukewarm water, making sure it is not too hot as you don’t want your wool to shrink.
2. Add some wool detergent, we love Soak! It’s specially formulated for cleaning knitwear and you don’t need to worry about rinsing. Soak also smells amazing!
3. Give your knits a gentle squeeze and soak, try not to wring out your wool as this can cause damage to the yarn and shape.
4. When you’re ready, take out your knitwear and lay it flat onto a towel, after this roll it up to press out the water.
5. Lay your knitwear flat onto a new fresh towel. You may see a few ‘bobbles’ appear on your knits after a couple of wears. Bobbling or pilling is a natural process and happens due to friction. But don’t panic, they are really easy to remove. You can use a wool shaver or comb to remove them. If you don’t have either of these you can borrow an old-school hair roller from your nan.

10 Comments

  1. Hi! Thanks for the helpful post. Where in the UK is Soak available – except for Kent and Stockport?

  2. I would like to put this on my pinterest account and I can’t. can you help

    • Hey Darlene – if you go to the board you want to pin to, then select the image you want to pin, this should work.

  3. This is old-fashion and out-dated information. Hand-washing is generally worse for wool than machine-washing. And equating knits with wool is just plain dumb. Use the wool program on the machine. Temperature has nothing to do with shrinkage, it is the MOVEMENT that makes the item shrink. Sentrifuge at as high a speed as possible to get out the dirty laundry water. And then there is no need to dry flat in a towel. That leaves in the dirty water! If one doesn’t have a wool detergent (without enzymes) use your shampoo!

    • Hey Tone. We’ve gone for a basic approach that everyone can do in their own homes. Opinion can be divided on how best to wash your woollens – whilst we’ve gone for our tried and tested approach there are other ways that may work for other people.

  4. Love the picture tutorial! Would it be okey for you if i borrowed the Pictures to my website? your credit ofc!

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