Husband learned what happens when you put pure wool in the wash today
He's a bit crazy about cleanliness so he has a habit of putting things in the wash that don't need to be washed - I just finished a pure wool hat for him less than a week ago and made it very clear that he COULD NOT put it in the wash (he's from Brazil and hasn't owned a wool hat before, so I really stressed how important it was to only hand wash it). His response was something along the lines of "what's the point of it then?" and I responded "it's not time-consuming to hand wash - just let me know when you want it washed and I'll do it for you".
Well, today he put it in anyway (mind you - it did not need to washed yet, I only finished it less than a week ago). He was surprised to see what happened. He feels really guilty about it - gutted really. In the end it's just a hat, so I reassured him that it was fine.
Secretly though, I wish he'd have just listened to me - I really couldn't have stressed it more but he apparently didn't take heed. In a way though it's nice to see how much it meant to him. When I finished it, he said it was the prettiest one I'd made yet which is why I gave it to him. I was actually planning on giving it to someone else, lol.
Maybe I should just use superwash wool and acrylic in the future...
edit: I brought it up later and asked why he didn't listen - part of the reason is that he had machine washed and dried some 100% cotton sweaters that he bought recently and they shrunk a little bit. He was really upset by that too, but I explained that cotton doesn't have much of a memory for size. I soaked them in some lukewarm water with fabric softener and let them hang dry and sure enough, their size was back. So when I explained that wool couldn't be machine washed, he thought it wouldn't change more than the cotton would.
That being said, he does have a habit of thinking he knows best despite my own expertise. I'm not an expert on many things, but I do passionately rant at him a lot about fibers and how they behave and what fibers are good for what. When we shop for clothes, I like to guess the material of random clothes after feeling them, give my reasoning and check the tag after - so he knows I'm an expert but he still thought he knew better. But now at least when it comes to fibers, I think he'll listen now.
Also, some people requested seeing the hat before/after. There's not much of a sense of scale, but the after image is also after my attempts to stretch it back a little. The pattern is lost, but it might fit a young teenager. It's not very pretty though
before - with my ugly face scratched out. unfortunately a blurry image, but it's the only one I took
