[sosew]

I’ve made a lovely little linen shirt and my little model happily put it on and then declared – its too ichy!!

i had prewashed it but not dried it (i cant even remember why! i usually dry stuff for kids clothes). all the tips im finding for softening linen are to wash on hot and dry.

am i totally out of luck? if i wash it and put it in the dryer will it shrink up a ton now?

the second little model is half an inch shorter and a couple pounds lighter so its possible if it shrinks just a bit that he would still fit in it.

i dont think it would work wiht an undershirt.

thanks!!

[meleliza]

It’s hard to say how much it will shrink now, but generally, yes linen will soften after it’s been washed and dried a few times. It tends to only get softer over time too.

[Nicole]

Try washing it in a wool wash and then air drying it.
I tend to wash linen in a wool/delicate wash product as it can help with the stiffness/scratchiness

[jay_1965vw]

If you have a large enough swatch left, you could try washing and machine drying a sample (mark a 10cm or 4″ square with permanent marker first). Then you’ll be able to see how much shrinkage you’ll get.

[sosew]

Thanks for all the tips.

In the meantime now someone in the house was trying to be helpful with the laundry and put it in the wash and dryer, so I guess that is done 🙂 The good news is it shrunk only a tiny bit so it still fits the smaller one just fine. And it did seem to soften up.

[jay_1965vw]

Hahahaha Problem solved.
Could have been catastrophic but wasn’t 🙂

(ok, now I have the “We solved the problem” song from Peg + Cat going around my head…)

[Liesl Gibson]

Linen will continue to soften more and more with each washing, and that’s one of the beauties of it. I wrote a little bit about it a while ago on the blog: http://oliverands.com/community/blog/2013/04/fabric-friday-natural-fibers-used-to-make-fabric.html

[sosew]

Thanks!