I am normally very careful with laundry.  I know what fabrics to wash and how to wash it.  That does not stop a rogue shirt or dress from being washed incorrectly and shrinking.

I found these instructions to Fix a Shrunk Shirt from Lafehacker website, and I decided to give it a chance.

I started with this shirt made of 80% Viscose and 20% Wool.  Due to a sorting mistake, it was washed on hot when it should have been washed with cold water and hung to dry.

And this Dry Clean Only dress made of 58% Wool and 42% Cotton should never see the inside of a washing machine.  Since this little accident, I no longer sort out my dry cleaning from the dirty laundry.  My Dry Clean Only garments now have a special bag.  As soon as I get undressed, it goes directly into the bag.

I followed the instructions and soaked both garments in warm water mixed with hair conditioner (herbal essence, but I doubt that matters). After about 10 minutes, I hung the shirt and pulled & tugged to stretch it back into the correct length.

Then, I hung the dress and attempted to pull and tug the “shirt” back into the length of a dress.

 

The shirt is about 3 inches longer!  I wore this dress last week.  It was rewashed (very gently in cold) and stayed long again.  Totally fixed!

 

 

 

 

 

The dress required a second treatment (warmer water and a 20 minute soak) then much more tugging.  The weight of the dress really helped to pull it down.  The lining is a poly-blend so it kept proper shape and length throughout the shrinking and anti-shrinking treatment.  After the unfortunate washing, the lining stuck out several inches longer than the shrunk dress.  Now the dress and the lining are about the same length.  Not a total failure, but certainly not a great success.  I am going to hem the lining up about an inch so that the dress is salvageable.  Mostly fixed.