PINAR
While knitting, I dream about future. I imagine my children and grandchildren will use what I have knit or crocheted. Like everybody who take pains over handcrafts, I would like people using my knittings remember me. So, I searched and tried on many ways about how to store and preserve the knitwear. In this article, I will tell you about some important points to keep your knittings new just like the first day.
1-) The knitwear you would like to store must be absolutely clean. They must be hand washed with warm (not hot) water and shampoo. Even if you try washing in washing machine at washing gently setting, you can not achieve the same result as hand washing. After you hand wash your knitwear, roll it on a clean towel smoothly and unroll. Repeat this for a couple of times. This will get most of the water out and the knitwear will be not wet but damp. While drying never use clothespins, avoid direct sunlight and never hang. It may cause distortions. Lay on a flat surface and dry properly.
2-) Do not wash your knittings very often. Washing too often, even if you be very careful, will cause wearing off. To prevent this, after each use air dry your knitting at an airy room that does not get direct sunlight.
3-) There are some important points while storing knitwears in closets. In recent years, cartoon boxes and plastic vacuum bags became very popular to store clothes. These can be very good solutions to store wearings like jeans or t-shirts which are not sensitive materials. But we should not use these technological solutions for our sensitive knittings we have made with great efforts. Because, knittings need air circulation. Air-tight boxes keep the humid inside and cause yellowing and/or mould growth. To store knitwear properly, you must use bags or packs made of cotton, linen or a similar material that can let the air in. At least in every six months, they must be taken out, aired and packed again.
4-) Don’t let moths eat your knitwear; There are ways to get rid of moths which are fed with with wool, silk etc. We used to use naphthalene mothballs, but experts say naphthalene has some bad effects on health. Instead, you can put levander sachets or cedar wood chips in your knittings. Levander will reduce damp and also scent. Cedar wood chips will keep the moths away. You can find these easily at the markets. But you must be careful that these must not touch your knitwear directly. You must put levander and cedar wood chips in pouches or sachets and place.
