I have a lot of sweaters. If you live in Montreal (or anywhere north of the 49th parallel), you probably have a lot of, too. Predictably, I take terrible care of mine -- possibly because most are from Forever 21 and already looked cheap-ish when I bought them, but also because I can be un petit peu lazy (gotta love our rickety washing machine). Lastly, I just don't know how to properly maintain them, save for going to the dry cleaners but I'm no daddy warbucks so that's out of the question.
Enter this post from the Madewell blog. They offer some pretty genius tips on how to take care of your sweaters. My favorites:
How can you gently remove pills from a sweater?
The unavoidable truth is all sweaters will pill just by wearing or cleaning them. You can remove pills easily by holding the sweater flat with one hand and slicing off pills one at a time with a simple razor, like a Bic. You can also buy a manual pill remover. [Stef's big mouth comment: Like I'll slicing anything other than my fingers right open. Still, good to know.]
What's the best way to hang a sweater to avoid little peaks in the shoulders?
The best way is to not hang it at all because sweaters, especially those with a loose weave, will stretch out. Preserve their shape by keeping them in drawers or on shelves, folded or rolled.
They even offer a step-by-step process for gently washing your knits in a bucket, plus how to handle a shrunken situation. Interesting!
Moment of truth (we all knew it was coming). Imagining myself *really* preparing a sweater bath makes me lawl. (Have we met? I'm impatient as hell.) But then I realized it takes more time (and $) to go out and replace all the tops I fuck up with poor maintenance. Maybe I'll try these tricks, at least as an experiment, and report back with the news.
Or maybe not. It's almost 11am and mama wants to make breakfast instead. (Make breakfast = go to Byblos.) Hey there, Maytag!
