How to look after a hand-knit so it lasts years

A hand-knit is not fragile. It is made of a material that behaves differently from a T-shirt, and most of the damage we see happens because someone treated it like one. Wool fibres have tiny scales running along their surface. Heat, movement and soap make those scales lift and lock into each other, and once they lock they do not come apart. That is felting, and it is the one thing you are really trying to avoid. Everything below follows from that single fact.

Washing

Wash less than you think you should. Wool resists odour on its own, and airing a sweater overnight near an open window does most of what a wash would do. For a piece you wear once a week, a few washes a year is normal. Spot clean a mark instead of washing the whole garment because of it.

When you do wash, use cool water and keep it cool the entire time. It is the swing in temperature as much as the heat itself that shocks the fibres. Fill a basin, add a small amount of a mild wool detergent or a plain gentle liquid with no enzymes and no bleach, and let the water do the work.

Put the piece in and press it under the surface. Leave it about ten minutes. Then squeeze gently, a few times, and stop. Do not rub the fabric against itself, do not swirl it around the basin, do not scrub at a stain. Rinse in water of the same temperature until it runs clear.

• Cool water from start to finish.
• A mild detergent, and less of it than you would use on cotton.
• Press and squeeze. Never rub, never twist.
• Rinse at the same temperature you washed in.
• Support the whole garment when you lift it out of the water.

Getting the water out

This is where most sweaters die. A wet knit is heavy, and that weight pulls every stitch long. Never wring it out, and never hold it up by the shoulders while it drips.

Press the water out while the piece is still fully supported instead. Lay it flat on a large towel, roll the towel up with the garment inside, and press down along the roll with both hands. Unroll it and most of the water is gone without a single stitch having been stretched. If it is still very wet, do it again with a dry towel.

Drying flat

Lay the piece flat on a dry towel or a mesh rack, out of direct sun, and pat it back into shape. Match the sleeves to each other. Square the shoulders. Straighten the hem. Wool is forgiving while it is damp and stubborn once it is dry, so the shape you set now is the shape you keep.

Never hang a wet knit on a line or a hanger. Never put it in a dryer, and never dry it on a hot surface. Turn it over once it is half dry so the underside gets air. Through the monsoon this can take two days, and a fan in the room helps far more than heat ever would.

Storing

Fold, do not hang. A hanger puts the entire weight of the garment on two points, and over one season that gives you shoulder bumps and a longer body. Fold along the lines the piece already has, sleeves tucked in, and stack no more than three or four deep.

Store it clean. Insects are less interested in wool than in the traces of skin, food and sweat left on it, so the piece put away dirty is the one that comes out with holes. Make sure it is bone dry before it goes into a cupboard, because a slightly damp knit in a closed box in humid weather will mildew. Neem leaves, dried cloves or a piece of cedar work as well as anything and smell a great deal better than mothballs.

Pilling

Pills are not a defect. They are short fibres working their way to the surface and tangling together, and every knitted fabric made from staple fibre does it. Wool does it, cotton does it, cashmere is famous for doing it. It shows up wherever things rub: under the arms, along the side where a bag strap sits, across the back of a jumper worn against a chair.

The fix is simple. Let the pills form over the first few wears, then take them off in one proper pass with a sweater comb, a fabric shaver, or the blunt edge of a razor held almost flat. Work in one direction, over a flat surface, with light pressure. Do not pull pills off with your fingers, because you are tugging on the yarn they are still attached to. Once those loose fibres are gone the garment pills much less, which is why the first de-pilling is the one that matters.

Anything you would not do to your own hair, do not do to wool. No hot water, no scrubbing, no wringing it dry.

Lakshmi, who runs our finishing table

None of this takes long once it is a habit. A wash is ten minutes of attention and a day of patience. Hand-knits treated this way last for years and soften as they go, which is more than most clothes can claim.