Hose in the drier

[prb]

Accidentally, one of my favourite hose ended up in the drier, instead of hanging dry. As a result, the detail and texture of the ribbing is bit flat. From a distance, it looks OK, even alongside the sensibly dried partner, but if I look down when I'm sitting, I notice the difference.

I wonder if anyone has any advice on livening it up again. I'd rather not put the other one in the drier, to bring it down to the standard of the flattened one.

[JRB]

I can't vouch for this, but you might try hand washing that hose and letting it air dry. It might restore the loft. Unfortunately, quite often machine drying hose will make permanent changes to the qualities if the wool.

[Highland Logan]

When heated the wool fibers mesh (melt) together. This is known as felting, and is how felt is made. There is nothing you can do to restore them. You might recreate the accendent with the other, so they at least match.

Frank

[Pleater]

It might be possible to restore the bounce a little using a good sposh of hair conditioner - it smooths the fibres and allows them to separate from eachother.

Put conditioner into mildly warm water so it is pleasant to work with it, immerse the sock then gently work the liquid through it, splosh squeeze, splosh squeeze. It should begin to feel slithery - if not add more conditioner.

To improve the ribbing you could work it diagonally, hold the top and bottom of a small section and move one left and the other right, then go the other way, repeat several times then move on to the next section. Draw the ribbing lengthways to finish the treatment, hopefully with sharper ribs.

With any luck after several minutes of this the yarn will have been unfelted and be more like the original sock.

Use the conditioner on the other sock - just squeeze it gently in water and conditioner at the same temperature as the first sock, so they don't feel different.

Hopefully they will once more be indistinguishable.

Anne the Pleater

[Nervous Jock]

put it down to experience and bin them

[Nighthawk]

I did that once. I kept the hose because they are thick wool and warm, but I can't keep them pulled up because they shrank. They're flat like you described. It really irritates me, too, because they're my navy blue ones, which go best with my Clergy tartan kilt. They look(ed) fantastic as formal wear... but now I have to wear my lovat blue ones until I can replace my navy ones. I feel your pain, man.

[prb]

It might be possible to restore the bounce a little using a good sposh of hair conditioner - it smooths the fibres and allows them to separate from eachother.
Anne the Pleater

Thanks Anne, this certainly has the feel of some splendid, textile-professional advice. I'll give it a try and we'll see how I get on.

Fortunately, it didn't go a full cycle in the drier, so it's not too bad. I noticed that the load I was about to wash only had one sock in it, and realised fairly quickly what had happened.