re wool blankets with a musty smell.

Contact your state's museum textile department. They should be able to refer you to a professional cleaner. Once the wool blankets are clean they may be protected from soiling by placing them in a duvet. Pioneer families basted a 12-18 inch edge (both sides) at the top when the blankets were used as bedding. This guarded from the hands and face contact during use and in the spring, the basting may be removed, laundered, and the blanket aired on a dry, sunny day.

It is important that wool not be stored in plastic which may trap moisture and develop mold or mustiness. Storage inside a pillowcase of appropriate size on a shelf or in a drawer in a very dry environment (not the bathroom) works well. Good wool blankets are true treasures and will last for decades when cared for properly.

Washing in a FRONT LOADING washer is gentle for wool and cool water reduces shrinkage. Top loading machines lead to compaction of fibers, pilling and other problems. You might want to check out the local laundromat for front loading and adequate size. I have not found regular laundry soap ideal, due to additives, built in softeners and bleaches. sometimes woolite is OK but check with mfr. re the musty odor removal.

Dry cleaning by "standard" cleaners may be OK or not depending on their methods amd the chemicals used. We have some beautiful blankets in our family that are more than 100 years old, used regularly and are still just like new.

Thank you, Mattie! This was very helpful.

My husband says he remembers Norwegian ladies washing wool blankets and leaving them on the line to freeze dry to expand the fibers and make them soft.

I wash all my wool blankets and comforters in a wool wash (like kookabura or the one everyone uses when they wash wool diaper covers and the name escapes me - although I'm sure you could find it easily). I wash it in my front loader on "hand wash" and it has always worked out very well. The wool wash brands are gentle and keep the lanolin in the wool.

I accidentally washed a wool sweater in with my regular clothes and regular detergent (7th generation) and it shrunk horribly. I didn't realize it was in there...... oh well! So I would be careful with that.
Hope that helps.
:-)

I wash my wool blankets (and the wool mattress pad I use on my bed) in the washing machine on the gentlest setting, using just the rinse and spin cycles. If you have a special second rinse or "soak" cycle, even better.

Fill the washing machine with cold water, stop the cycle, add a cup of vinegar, and submerge the wool blanket (it will resist the water, since wool is naturally water-resistant, so it may take several minutes for you to get the thing waterlogged and completely submerged in the water in the machine).

Let the blanket sit in the water for 10-20 minutes, then run the machine through the rinse and spin cycles. Shrinkage should be minimal with the low agitation. Hang the blanket to dry (I always strung mine over our upstairs bannister).

I read somewhere that agitation is the enemy of wool. I have a front loader. I use Eucalan Lavender No Rinse Fine Fabric Wash in the Hand Wash rinse cycle. I let it tumble until the blanket is all wet, let it soak for one half hour and then spin the water out.

please help....
i stupidly put my baby blanket in a 90 degree wash and i guess it has shrunk a bit but also looks like a towel now - is there any way to make it fluffy again... am devestated... and feeling sooo stupid, put it on wrong wash by mistake.... ahhhh... not worried that it is small just the texture... am leaving it to soak with softener....

To make felt you take wool, agitate it and alternate very hot and cold water. This makes the fibers, which have little barbs on them, interlock tighter and tighter. This is what you are doing when you wash a wool sweater or blanket in the washing machine. You end up with felt, and it is not reversable. If you limit the agitation (gentle cycle) and only use cold water, if should come out ok.

When wool shrinks and becomes matted like that it is called "felting". I haven't tried this but I've heard that if you boil the item in a one part vinegar to two parts water solution it will reverse the felting. You can try googling "reverse felting" to see if there are other remedies. Knitting and other craft sites sometimes have this kind of information.

Dear K,

I'm the one who posted the original question on this topic. It was experience like yours that caused me to be concerned about washing our old blankets.

To your question, I do have a sad answer: your blanket is felted. Wool fibers have a rough, sort of thorny surface and with agitation or anything that shocks the fibers, such as hot or cold, the fibers scrunch together. Because of the "thorns," they are locked together with no going back.

However, your blanket can have a new life. Felting is currently quite popular and ideas and patterns are widely available in books at the library and at shops.

Ideas include handbags, pillows, and slippers. Wool is water resistant and works even for diaper covers. Recently I purchased a wool sweater at a thrift store for the purpose of felting it. You can wash your blanket again if you'd like to felt it further.

Another "new life" for a felted wool blanket is as a mattress pad. Wool is great for sleeping on as it wicks moisture and is inhospitable to dust mites.

We put a felted wool blanket under a cotton mattress pad and then the fitted sheet. The wool keeps the matress protected from all kinds of moisture (especially great for kids) and helps minimize the dust mite environment.