Washing Wool Kilts

[The Wizard of BC]

Rocky, I too bought a front loader set for our house a couple of years ago. Having spent time in Europe I fell in love with front loaders.

Our models, although different brands from yours also have the ultra-gentle hand-wash cycle. On ours the washer drum does not rotate all the way around but slowly rocks back and forth.

I have only attempted to wash a Wool Kilt in this washer once. I used a Kilt I had in the shop that was never picked up by a customer so if it had been damaged it was no big deal.

To my great surprise the job done by the washer was perfect. The water temp was controlled to within 2 degrees of optimum, the gentle rocking of the drum was just enough to do a great job, and there was no damage or wear evident on the Kilt.

I then went one step further. Our Dryer has one of those racks that you can insert into the drum. It is meant to dry sneakers and keep them from banging around inside the drum. I laid the Kilt out on the rack and turned on the dryer with my fingers crossed.

Every few minutes I would check the Kilt so perhaps I fouled up the cycle but the Kilt was dry in 90 min. When the Kilt went into the dryer it was dripping water. 90 min later it was only very slightly moist. Perfect for hanging to allow any small wrinkles from folding to fall out of the pleats.

I then very carefully measured the Kilt and compared them to the ones I took before washing. There was no shrinkage. None at all. In fact the Hip measurement was 1/4" larger after washing as the gentle rocking loosened the Kilt fabric up a bit. I expected this as the Kilt was brand new and had never been worn or washed before.

I second your recommendation of purchasing a really good front loader set if you are in the market for a new washer & dryer.
In fact if you can afford it I would suggest looking at the sets that have the steam wrinkle release feature. This feature was introduced here the year after we bought ours. Otherwise I would be reviewing that too.

[RockyR]

I then went one step further. Our Dryer has one of those racks that you can insert into the drum. It is meant to dry sneakers and keep them from banging around inside the drum. I laid the Kilt out on the rack and turned on the dryer with my fingers crossed.

Our dryer has that function as well, but I wasn't THAT brave as these were MY kilts.