Category: storage

August Heat, time to bring out the sweaters?

If you took care of your sweaters last spring when you put them away, they were cleaned & de’fuzzed’ and put away in breathable bags/containers.  Then when the cool weather comes around, you need only pull them out and put them on. (see my post on breathing new life into an old sweater)

BUT, most of us wash & put things away without the extra ‘care’ for the woolies…and the moths love us for that…pills attract & hide dirt, and dirt attracts those little moths…and we end up opening up our sweater drawer (closet, wardrobe) and find our lovely woolies have become a moth buffet!

Now, rather than have a sweater emergency in late September, now is the perfect time to pull out those woolies and check them out.  Wash with a wool soap (my favourite has always been Eucalan Lavender no-rinse wash, but Soak or Kookaburra are nice too); shave off those fuzzies (the technical term is pills) and have your lovely woolies ready for the cool breezes soon to come….

(As I write this, I have the air conditioner on, tank top and shorts…I just finished knitting a wool hat, so yes, I know it sounds crazy, but believe me, do it now rather than later)

 

 

Sweater: 25 years & looking brand new!

As the weather warms up, it’s actually the BEST time to care for our favourite sweaters so they are clean & moth-free for the summer storage.  My favourite sweater is over 25 years old (I can’t quite recall when I got it, but I know it was a gift from my parents).  I wear this sweater to nearly every hockey game and hockey practice, so the sweater is well-worn!  It just doesn’t need to look that way:

Any sweater with pills will snag more easily and collect dirt more easily – dirt also attracts moths…so any sweater going into ‘storage’ needs to be clean to avoid surprise moth holes in the fall.  In this case, first step is de-pill the sweater!  I did one side using a dull razor from my husband, it was quick, but with the amount of pilling, became far too dull before I could complete the sweater.

I purchased a small battery operated sweater shaver, which took me a total of 3 hours to completely clean off this sweater.  Had the pilling not been so bad, it wouldn’t have taken as long, and its definitely better for preventative maintenance, but for something this drastic, the shaver kept snagging – yarn would spin in the middle and catch on the sweater:

You can see it sticking out on the shaver, as the shaver spun it would catch on the sweater and build up inside the shaver

I hope to try out another technique in the coming weeks as I order in some other de-pillers 🙂

But, sweater looks brand-new, and after a wash & dry, I’ll store this one in my closet with some lavender – because I still love this sweater for nights when camping plus I’ll be visiting arenas again in August.