Washing a Wool Kilt

[mumsie53]

Hi, I washed a 9yd kilt I bought for my husband on ebay a week or 2 ago.. I used the bathtub rather than the washing machine, cool water, a little cooler than you would bath a baby in, and ordinary hair shampoo.. the way I did it was to put the kilt in folded as for a hanger, smoosh it down in the water and left it for about half an hour to loosen the dirt.. then I "smooshed" it up and down in the water by just pressing my hands on it here and there, when all the dirt was out (and it was surprising how much dirt was in a kilt that looked ok ).. I drained the water,refilled with the same temp and did it again until all the soap was gone.. Then I,folded the kilt lengthwise so the pleats were inside the aprons and eased it into the leg of a pair of tights (pantihose to our US chums).. tie a knot in the leg and put the whole thing into a spin only cycle.. (the tights keep the pleats) ....I then hung it on 3 skirt hangers (one for each apron and one for the back), smoothed any small creases, and there weren't many.and dried it hanging around one of those collapsible clothes driers.... it kept its size,shape and needed practically no pressing......the plaid got the same treatment and turned out just as well.. I am very pleased with it
hope this helps
PamH

[Pyper]

Now that my kilt is drying out, I realize a lot of the darkness in the white stripes was actually due to the thread being wet, not due to taking on color. Yeah!

I'll probably work on the basting tomorrow.

[cdarwin]

Thanks everyone for the great advice! I was able to get the small spot out of the kilt using Anne the Pleater's sponge technique. I will wait to wash the entire kilt until it gets really grimy.