How to Wash a Wool Blanket

How to Wash a Wool Blanket

Wash a wool blanket in cold water on a wool cycle with wool detergent, or by hand in the bath. Do not wring it. Do not put it in the dryer. Dry it flat, out of direct sun. Most wool blankets need this once a year at most.

That is the short version. The longer one matters, because the usual way a wool blanket gets ruined is not dirt.

What actually wrecks a wool blanket

Wool fibres are covered in overlapping scales, too small to see. Heat lifts them. Agitation locks them into each other. Once they have locked, they do not unlock. The blanket comes out smaller, denser, stiffer and permanently changed.

That is felting. It is the same process we use deliberately to make felt, and it is why a wool jumper comes out of a hot wash fitting a child. Nothing reverses it.

So the whole method comes down to two things. Keep the water cold. Keep the movement to a minimum.

Most of the time, do not wash it at all

Wool is naturally antimicrobial and it releases odour on its own. Airing does more than washing and costs the blanket nothing.

Shake it out hard. Hang it over a line on a dry, breezy day, out of direct sun, for a few hours. Turn it once. That handles smoke, damp, dog and most of a season's use.

We air ours between trips and wash them roughly once a year.

Spot cleaning

Deal with a spill while it is still wet. Blot, do not rub, with a clean cloth. Cold water only. If it needs more than water, a drop of wool detergent worked gently into the spot with your fingers, then blotted out with a damp cloth.

Let it dry flat before you fold it away.

Machine washing

Only if your machine has a genuine wool or hand wash cycle. If it does not, do it in the bath.

  1. Shake the blanket out and check for pulled threads. Wash pulls them further.
  2. Cold water. Not warm. Cold.
  3. Wool detergent, or a wool wash. No regular laundry powder, no bleach, no fabric softener, no oxygen brighteners. Regular detergent is alkaline and strips the lanolin.
  4. Wool or hand wash cycle. Lowest spin the machine offers, or no spin at all.
  5. Wash it on its own. A blanket needs room, and anything with a zip will catch.
  6. Take it out as soon as the cycle ends. Wet wool left sitting in a drum will mildew.

Hand washing in the bath

Slower and gentler, and what we do with ours.

  1. Run 15 to 20cm of cold water. Add wool detergent and swirl it through before the blanket goes in.
  2. Lay the blanket in and press it under. Do not drop it in and stir.
  3. Press it up and down with flat hands, ten or fifteen times. That is the whole wash. Resist the urge to scrub.
  4. Leave it 15 minutes.
  5. Drain. Press the water out against the side of the bath with your palms. Never twist, never wring.
  6. Refill with clean cold water, press through again, drain. Repeat until the water runs clear.
  7. Press out as much water as you can, then roll the blanket in a dry towel and press again.

Drying

Flat, always. A wet wool blanket is heavy, and hanging it over a line puts all that weight on the fibres at the fold. It will stretch and it will keep the shape.

Lay it on a drying rack, a clean sheet on the floor, or two lines side by side so the weight spreads. Out of direct sun, which fades and weakens the fibre. Turn it once. It will take a day or two depending on the weather, and it is not dry until it feels dry all the way through at the thickest part.

No dryer. Not even on low. Not even for ten minutes.

Storing it

Clean and completely dry, because moths go for the residue on a dirty blanket rather than the wool itself. Fold it loosely. Cotton or linen storage, not plastic, so it can breathe. Cedar or lavender if you get moths where you are.

Pilling and pulls

Pilling is normal on a new blanket and settles after the first few uses. Take the pills off with a fabric comb or a sweater stone, not scissors.

A pulled thread should be eased back through from the reverse with a blunt needle, not cut. If you cut it, the whip stitching starts to unravel.

Our blankets

The Maatsuyker is recycled Australian hosiery wool, whip stitched by hand with New Zealand cotton and finished in our workshop on the water in Tasmania. The wool has already had one life, which is part of the point.

If yours needs more than a wash, send it back. Repairs are free for as long as you own it.

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