learning something new makes you tad smarter.

So we got this new shirt and sweater for newspaper. Ms. Schiff wants us to wear them every Friday for the rest of the year. Most of the newspaper staff wore their shirts on Friday, except for two people I think. They are actually pretty cool, you know. The shirts and the sweater I mean.

Anyway, every Saturday I do the laundry. And so it's Saturday today, guess what, I did the laundry. While I got first set of clothes out of the dryer, I surprisingly found that my newspaper sweater had shrunk. My eyes widened as I stared at it. I went straight to my room to try it on, curious if it really had shrunk. And yes, it did. They used to be big for me and now it too small for me. Too small. I think it shrunk, like, about 50 percent of its original size.

I was curious then on how clothes shrink, and I searched it on the net. I typed in google 'how do clothes shrink'. And this is what I got:

I agree with David. Heat does a number on anything, including laundry. It's been my experience that the hot air in a dryer causes more shrinkage than hot water in the washer, but hot water still shrinks anything susceptible to getting shrunk, like cotton. Washing in warm (not hot) water, then skipping the dryer and hanging the clothes out to air dry has always worked pretty well. Again, I agree with David - cold water/air is your best bet for no shrinking at all, and it's probably easier on the clothes. Drying on a low heat setting, like permanent press, for only five or ten minutes shouldn't cause much shrinking, depending on the specific fabric. Good luck!

You can find more answers here.

So the heat in the washer and in the dryer make clothes shrink, especially cotton. So now that makes sense. I put both the shirt and the sweater on warm water and they are both 100 percent cotton. The shirt shrunk a little but not that much on the length. So its still good since I need the length. But I'm really concerned about the sweater. I guess I'll have to ask Ms. Schiff if I can exchange my sweater. I'll just lie that the sweater never originally fits me. I hope she buys it. And I'll wash all my clothes in cold water on the washer and ultra low temperature on the dryer from now on.

Cheers~~