Not gardening I know, but there’s some wool experts on the forum and I might need to refer to this from time to time.

We have a couple of good Onkaparinga blankets, about 30 years old. Normally I get them dry-cleaned after winter ( my mother never washed these) to get rid of the dust, but there are some tiny holes in them now.

What can I do to fix these holes? Darn with fine wool?

Am about to give one of them a pre-pack-away bath in lux/eucalyptus/metho combo: it works really well even if it doesn’t totally get rid of the dust…maybe I should rinse before soaking in the mix?

Onkaparinga blankets, now that’s a word I haven’t heard for some time now… Lovely little creek, the Onk.

They are $360 the blanket! I just looked up the Onkaparinga website…all boring monochromatic colours tho’: mine is a lovely orange “tartan” pattern..

I remember green… with silky trimming/edging

yes I’d darn them with a matching colour. The small holes are most likely moth damage.

Dinetta said:

They are $360 the blanket! I just looked up the Onkaparinga website…all boring monochromatic colours tho’: mine is a lovely orange “tartan” pattern..

The only way I know that you can fix holes in wool is to darn. The old fashioned way. There are companies that do this stuff professionally but I don’t imagine it’s cheap.

I can darn, learnt at Brownies …it was an essential skill when I was a young girl and isn’t it amazing that children don’t even know how to sew on buttons anymore…but I digress.

The idea in my head is that I take the darn to half an inch around the hole…this should minimise any pull on the hole in the future…

Yes, we were thinking moth damage, but it’s got me stumped as I always pack these away with a surfeit of napthalene…it could be the damage occurred before I was given the blankets and now the holes, small as they are, have become noticeable? I have had them drycleaned for the past 5 or so years, to get the dust out…

I rinsed them at the laundromat in town,in the front end loaders, then I soaked them in that Lux/metho/eucalyptus oyl stuff, in the bathtub….I really do think that mix has to “brew” to do the job properly…now for some napthalene and away they go…will ring Onkaparinga in a few weeks as the satin bindings have worn…