How to make narrow clothes wider

Unfortunately, sometimes you put an item of clothing in the washing machine, set a wash too hot and make the dress shrink. How can we remedy the damage caused?

• We run the warm water in the sink we use for hand washing or in a bucket of at least 1 liter of warm water. Please note that especially our knitted fabrics such as cashmire wool, silk, rayon and polyester need lukewarm water! We pour baby shampoo or conditioner in the proportion of 15 ml of shampoo or conditioner for each liter of water.

  We mix everything until it reaches a slippery and soapy consistency. Baby shampoo and conditioner can relax the fibers of tight clothing and since the fibers in the meantime have to be pulled with the hands, they themselves become easier to stretch and manipulate, being able to return the garment to its size.

  We squeeze by removing the garment from the soapy solution and wrap it on itself, squeezing it firmly to remove excess water.

• We do not rinse the garment: the soapy water must continue to actively relax the fibers while we take care of the enlargement and recreation of the shape of the dress. We squeeze the additional excess water between two towels and spread a towel on a flat surface. We lay the garment on it: gradually rolling it up together with the towel.

  The garment should remain in this "microclimate" for approximately 10 minutes. After this time, it should be damp, not wet.

• Let's pull the dress and give it back its shape. We unroll the towel and, moving the garment on another dry towel spread out on a flat surface, we gently stretch the fabric so that it regains its correct shape; to keep it in place, we secure the corners with heavy objects or safety pins.
• For a more accurate measurement of the actual shape and size of your garment, we can trace the outline of a similar garment that fits on a large piece of parchment paper. We arrange the garment that we are trying to enlarge on this outline and stretch it to make it fit within the exact boundaries drawn.
• If it's hard to make a dress stretch because it feels too stiff, we could also use the steam that comes out of an iron to make it easy to handle.