This is a tale of redemption and resilience. This is what happened to the hat I thought I’d lost.

It had fallen into the leaves in the parking lot last fall, and turned up this spring. It had been outdoors, under snow, all winter. It had been rained on. It had been snowed on. It had been run over by our car, for about 3 months before Tito picked it out of the mulch with a look of horror and said ‘Is this yours?’.

Now, if this was an ordinary hat I’d have called it a loss. But it’s not. For a start, it’s Emily’s yarn. Which doesn’t just make it 100 times more precious to me – but also means that it bounces back from tragedy like nobodies business. Besides, I knitted it specifically to go with my Thermis, and damned if I wasn’t going to get some use out of it. I am also wise in the ways of the restorative powers of Soak. So with this in mind, and a strong cup of tea, I set about operation rescue.

First I had to get all of the mulch out of it. Yuck. This is not even a third of what I pulled out of that hat. Thankfully it was early enough in the spring that I had only to contend with mulch and not critters.

Next I rinsed it in warm water a few times and then set it into a warm bath of Soak. I left it there for an hour, emptied and refilled the Soak wash. I had to do this twice more before the water came out perfectly clear. I put the red bottle in because it’s my favourite scent =o)

And voila! Look at that, it’s perfect. The fibres all fell back into place, the hat smells great and it’s completely clean and wearable. Kudos to Emily and the fine folk at Soak – I will go on to enjoy this hat next winter =o)