Care and cleaning of wool felt tea or coffee cozies.
These felt cosies hold up wonderfully if treated well. However we all know “stuff happens.”
The good news it that wool felt is naturally resistant to spills. The liquid sits on the surface and, if blotted up immediately with a clean white paper towel, will disappear. Stains can generally be treated by blotting firmly (don’t rub) with a clean white rag or paper towel using tepid water. Keep turning the cloth to ensure the lifted stain is not passed back to the fabric. Blot firmly again to dry. (Never use the washing machine as this continues the felting process and it will shrink.)
If the felt gets roughed up during your spot cleaning, gently iron using the wool steam setting with a damp tea towel between the iron and the cosy.
Drycleaning — not machine washing — is your other alternative. Point out where the stains are when you take it in.
Cleaning Tests
Tea is widely used as a dye and its stains can be, well, a bugger to get out of a nice white shirt for instance. Here’s a test run of tea stains on some felt samples and a step by step on cleaning.
Rejuvenating your felt tea cosy
In the five years since it was made this cosy has experienced normal wear and tear and stuffing-in-drawers between tea-drinking visitors. So, having a lazy afternoon at hand, I thought I’d see what kind of “spa” rejuvenation I could give it.