Hi folks,
As winter is getting worse nowadays, I'm planning to buy a wool quilt that is available at half price in spotlight. However, it seems that "dry cleaning only" and commercial dry cleaning can cost up to 1/3 of the cost of quilt. Therefore, can anyone suggest a better way to wash/ clean the wool quilts at home?
I always ignore those labels and wash at home. Too broke to fork out for dry cleaning.
Just put it on gentle and no spin cycle and make sure when you put it in you try to avoid bunching anything, try and keep it "fluffy" otherwise the water tends not to get into the centre. Just lay it out flat as best you can across the clothes line. I even laid it out across a patio table once.
There's a detergent specifically for Woolen, not sure what the difference is.
My washing machine has a Wool cycle, I think it's gentler and lower temp.
as the quilt is always inside a quilt cover I never wash mine. I place the quilt in a black plastic bag with some rice(moisture absorption) and seal it with tape. then place that in a larger clear plastic bag and seal that and then place it in direct sunlight for the day. the plastic bags act like a greenhouse and heat up the inside of the black bag to over 60degrees. this effectively kills any bacteria, mites, etc etc - any smells are "destroyed" this way. after a few hours I take it out and fluff it up (shake out any rice) and lay it out on the trampoline to air.
The quilt cover gets the grand wash.
OMG, now I gotta buy a Trampoline too? lol
They don't tell you any of this when selling you a Quilt.
Is the trampoline clean?
just get it dry cleaned first.
Do you think the same technique as yours will work with a feather down quilt? Sounds likely, but thought I'd check anyway
Will also appreciate if others can share how they clean their feather down quilts? Thanks in advance.
I once washed my feather down quilt in the washing machine. It came out flat and lumpy, and was never the same again :-(
it should work. it's just heat treating the quilt.
I just wash my wool quilt in the washing machine with wool wash and then let it line dry.
Another related topic: Due to my disaster with cleaning feather-down quilts (described above), I tried to swap to polyester quilts which can be washed often. Problem was the queen-sized quilt could not fit into my washing machine. So I thought up this not-so-brilliant idea - to cut the quilt into half, sewed the cut sides to make 2 smaller quilts. Then put on snap buttons to hold them in place after washing.
The problem is: (i) they kept unsnapping and create big holes, so freezing to death, (ii) even if they could hold, it is colder. If someone can similarly share how on earth they wash big-sized polyester quilts, if your washing machine is not big enough, that would be appreciated :-)
If you have a bathtub, you could handwash the quilt in the bath. Otherwise, you could use a laundromat with a large capacity machine.
I had the same problem. In my case, dry cleaning would have cost me about 2/3 what I paid for my wool quilt. I thought WTH, just chuck into my regular washing machine on warm gentle wash and see what happens. Worse case scenario, the quilt is ruined and I pay the 1/3 extra to get a new quilt.
Turned out ok, may have shrunk a little, can't really tell.