Washing a wool hat?

Ok, so I was kinda horrified earlier when I went to put on one of my favorite sweaters -- it's dark red with dark grey raglan sleeves, pretty casual, but so warm and really neato-looking, because you don't usually get a sweater with raglan sleeves in two different solid colors, you know? -- anyway, I didn't realize it until I went to put it on, but I shrank the doo-doo out of it. Oh noes, it went in with the rest of the laundry! How could this have happened! etc. 100% lambswool + washer + dryer = disaster.

Or so I thought! I'm giving this method a go, and so far it looks really promising. I soaked it for 10-20 minutes in warm water with some of the super-gentle liquid face soap from the shower rack (I read somewhere the hair conditioner is also gentle enough), laid out an extra fluffy towel and got to stretching it back to my liking. This is fun, since any place that it had been stretched out of shape by yanking it off by the neck or by just plain being fat is now taut, but still yielding to my whim. By stretching it longer than wide and giving the arms a little extra length that I often need out of a lot of sleeves, I can has CUSTOM SWEATER. And oh, it's so so soft now. Nearly felt.

I will report back and let you know if it works out like I hope, or if it dries into some kind of giant crispy mass, or something awful like that.

Maybe I should give it a go as well. One sweater is so small, I could fit my baby daughter in it. :-( Suxors. Thought it was due to me being so fat, but now that I dropped eight kgs, it's still too small... albeit a little less. hah

Motherhood is hell on sweaters.

Actually I can't remember if I washed it. :-( It was either the cleaning lady, my husband or a zombie (read: me). :-)

It's clearly the last explanation for me. The little man inside my head whose job it is to say "Dude, don't do that, that's wool!" has gotten complacent and lazy.

Very big success with this, btw. Huge. I may have made the arms about an inch too long, but fuck it.

Also, crazy warm. This was always a warm sweater, but now that the wool is a bit matted, it's scary warm. Wearing this on a hot day would be the kind of cruel fraternity hazing ritual that ends in needless death.