Just looking at ordering a new wool jacket for Thanksgiving hunting. Found these great archery and bush coats from Fred Asbell, who is a legendary archery instinctive shooter, whose books were recommended to me 20 years ago by Buz Fawcett, our instinctive shotgunning instructor. All of his books are well worth reading for any archer. Anyway, back to wool, Fred’s wife recommends the following method for washing wool, which is very similar to what English and Irish hunt staff do for their wool foxhunting coats. They just use cold water in a feed trough and a stiff coat brush to scrub out mud or stains, then putting between towels and walking on it, then stretching a little while drying flat.
WASHING WOOL
By: Teresa Asbell
There hasn’t been a lot written about caring for wool. One of the things you often see on labels is, Do not wash, Dry Clean only. Dry cleaning will certainly clean wool, but it fills it with chemicals that smell bad and removes the lanolin and oil. And if you are an outdoorsman, you don’t want to do that.
All wool can be washed. How you go about doing it is important…but it is simple. Forget the wash machine and dryer. All wool should be hand-washed in cold water with a gentle soap. We use Charlie’s Soap, which is totally biodegradable and unscented and works particularly well on wool and silk. Woolite has been around for a long time and works well, but it has a fragrance in it, and I’d as soon not have that on my hunting clothes.
A big container, like a bathtub, that will hold lots of water is best. Dissolve the soap in the water and push/slosh your garment up and down, back and forth, pushing the water and soap through the fibers for a few minutes. It doesn’t hurt to let it soak a bit. Drain the water and refill the container with clear water and repeat the sloshing action, rinsing the soap away (which you’ll not be able to see.) Press as much water out of the garment as possible, but DO NOT WRING or TWIST.
I lay the garment between two dry towels and press as much of the water out as possible. Then I carefully “block” the garment, which amounts to gently stretching the fibers back into their original shape, pulling vertically and horizontally. Sometime two people gently stretching trouser legs and long sleeves works well. You may feel the wet material move a tiny bit, and that’s all you are trying to do. I may do that a couple of time as the garment dries. Hang or lay the garment where it catches the air, but not the heat. Honestly, I have a closet full of wool clothing…some of it 50 years old…and I wash it all and none of it has shrunk.
