In a series of letters this week, we will explore what makes us be better stitchers while being productive and gaining enjoyment from our hobby!
While the weather is fine, mend your sails! That’s the equivalent of a proverb I know: Mend your sleigh in summer and cart in winter.
As much as we love working on our stitching projects, we also love wearing them often, which leads to inevitable wear and tear. However, there are ways of caring for your garments and accessories to get the most wear you can from them.
We love to wear garments made out of the most luxurious fibers, but these are the ones that require the most care throughout their lifespan. They will definitely require frequent de-pilling sessions and a gentle wool wash soak at the end of the cold season. Check for any spots of injured fabric that might require mending. You can choose the invisible or visible mending route—either way will give you a couple more years to enjoy your favorite knits.
When it’s time to put away hats and sweaters for the summer, it’s essential to keep your stitched items clean of any odors to fight any wool-loving vermin. Storing them in airtight containers does the trick, but you should also check on them from time to time. Numerous accessories made of natural components, such as verbena root spheres, cedar balls, and cedar planks, are readily available, and all of these would keep your knits, as well as your yarn, protected and smelling lovely all year. And if you wish, you can even make your own moth repellent with a little help from your kitchen spice cabinet by mixing cedar chips with dry lavender, whole cloves, cinnamon sticks, and a couple drops of essential oils of the same components to strengthen the scent if you wish. Fill cloth sachets or even tea infuser bags with this mixture and place them with your knits, making sure that those sachets are not touching any clothing if you add any oils.
Seen in this letter:
Soak in large size in YUZU – available at fibre space
Flatter in Scentless in travel size – available at fibre space
Vetiver root Balls/Hearts – available at fibre space
Cedar wooden balls
Dry Lavender
Gleener in full size in color Blue – available at fibre space in red
Gleener in travel size in color Orange – available this week at fibre space!
Sweater in this photo is Koto from Wool People 9