Rescue/Restore old Wool blanket

[mattl]

I was rummaging around my closet the other day and came across an old wool blanket, odds are 50+ years old.  It's too big to be a twin, odds are it was for a double bed, but through many launderings over they ears it seems to have shrunk up a fair amount.  I like it because it's quite heavy, this time a year I like a mound of heavy blankets on the bed, and I'd like to use it.  

 

I recall hearing various ways to stretch shrunken wool items, but not sure which is the best.  The one that comes to mind is soaking it in a strong mixture of fabric softener, not sure it that works.  I recall I had a terrible experience with a very expensive hand knit wool sweater many years ago, it got laundered and shrank to child's size.  I was soo upset, I paid about $200 for it and loved it, should have sent it to the cleaners even though it said washable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[3beltwesty]

Wool link

"During a wash - especially if it's too vigorous, too hot and there's a heavy load in - your wool clothing will shrink!. "

"Unfortunately there is no way to reverse this action - it has to stay shrunk! There is no way to stretch out shrunken wool. It's just not possible, as the fibers have bonded together."

http://www.woolcrafting.com/shrunken-wool.html

 

[3beltwesty]

Wool link

"During a wash - especially if it's too vigorous, too hot and there's a heavy load in - your wool clothing will shrink!. "

"Unfortunately there is no way to reverse this action - it has to stay shrunk! There is no way to stretch out shrunken wool. It's just not possible, as the fibers have bonded together."

http://www.woolcrafting.com/shrunken-wool.html

 

[3beltwesty]

How To Un-Shrink a Wool Sweater

"To un-shrink the wool, soak the garment in warm water with a mild soap for about 10 minutes. This unlocks the fibres in the wool. Then lay the garment out on some towels in a cool place. Stretch the garment out to its original dimensions. The stretching pulls the unlocked wool fibres away from each other. Allow it to dry. The absence of heat from the drying process allows the wool fibres to set in place without locking together and shrinking the garment again."

http://www.pioneerthinking.com/ac_unshrink.html

 

[3beltwesty]

Pull in all directions

With a shrunken wool blanket I rewashed it then had it folded in half over a clothes line and weighted it with a board clamped to each end horizontally.

One really needs force pulling it from all four sides, thus my drape over a clothes line addresses only 2 sides. THUS; One can clamp where the "fold" touches the clothes line and pull along the clothes line to add tension in the horizontal direction.

I did this with some wool blankets that went under water in Katrina.

Ideally a giant table with pulls would be best, to pull all four sides. As it stretches one has to reclamp. Thus my boards I had used c-clamps and they were unloosened and reclamp as the woolen blanket relieved and "grew". Some of these blankets were just old Family stuff, grandmothers ones with hand made stuff added, thus "valuable" to me. For a regular blanket, it might be cheaper just o buy a new one.

 

[3beltwesty]

COMIC LOOK diagram

With 2x4 board its weight is decent. If you C clamps are rusty you need some paper to isolate the blanket.

One time I used a 1x2 or 1x4 too, a 2x4 has more weight thus no extra weight is often needed.

 

[toggleswitch]

There was a bed size in this country years ago called "matrimonial".
It was larger than a "twin" size (single bed), yet smaller than a "full" size (double bed).
A friend of mine had one (it was his grandmother's) and it was truly a strange sight sight to behold.
Wonder if your blanket was intended for this now rare size.

 

[ronhic]

We too....

....had, and still have, in between beds - two now, but there were three of them actually...

- '3/4' bed = 3'6" x 6'3" (now not normally available unless specially ordered)
- long single = 3' x 6'3"
- long wide single = 3'6" x 6'9"

Plus usual single, double, queen and king....

 

[mattl]

I just measured it, it's 55"x68".  Also, the tag is still on it, it's a Kenwood Woolens blanket, binding is long gone.   I would guess it's from the '50s or so, no idea when my mother bought it, but we've had it as long as I can remember.

 

What is a standard blanket length, 75"?  Based on that perhaps we can make an educated guess as to how wide it was...

 

[jeffg]

It's either a shrunken double or badly shrunken queen. No offense meant to anyone.

 

[mattl]

I'd guess it's a shrunken double.  I like the weight of it so I will give stretching a try...

 

[polkanut]

The size of bed Steve is referring to is/was also called a 3/4 size bed.

 

[westie2]

Those beds Steve and Tim are talking about 3/4 were greatly used in many model homs to make the bedrooms l;ool bigger as they were clost odouble bed size and when one was looking through at homes would look like the double and make one think the room was bigger.  Always with me I cvarry a measuring tape to make sure of the size.   Some homes we even looked at in new subdivisions would even haqve the bedroom doors off  so room looked bigger.  The living areas also used smaller furniture to visually make things look bigger.

 

[3beltwesty]

The "it is for an old sized small bed" is an ancient

This tale or fib I have heard for many decades.

Here there is this nice red patterned wool blanket here that my dad used in the 1930's in college.

After a few goofs over the decades, the tales/fibs/stories have further evolved to "it was once cut in half" too.

Now the same blanket is usefull on a crib or while watching TV on a cold night on a chair. Before my folks passed away the tale morphed to "it was once cut in half" because several radical shrinkages made it way smaller and they forgot its history.

I used the same blanket as an extra blanket in the 1970's and it did not fit a twin bed, today it is way smaller