Originally Posted by
merziac
Hand wash in hot to soften the material (even though they tell you not to) and just block by carefully stretching with your arms inside the jersey and laying it stretched on a dry towel, restretch several times throughout the drying process.
The pin blocking method is to fussy and does not stretch enough for this.
I put a thick towel over a big easy chair and restretch it several times as I walk by and press it back down on the towel, stretching a bit as I do that.
If you are careful you can get there, patience grasshopper.
I have saved some that were 2/3 their size after losing track and going through the dryer.
And yes, you will have to flat dry and block it some every time from now on.
OK, quick update. Following
merziac 's sage advice, I had the idea to cut out a template that I could stretch the jersey over while it dried. Was going to do it with plywood, but decided on corflute instead which was a lot cheaper and easier to cut. Used a nice fitting jersey I had to trace the shape, cut out the template...then realised I couldn't stretch the jersey enough to get past the arms. Lucky I got corflute; scored one side to allow the arms to fold in which allowed me to get the jersey on, then fold the arms out into the sleeves.
Soaked the jersey in warm water (I didn't feel confident with hot) and stretched it over the corflute template. Still used pins to stretch the length as far as it would go, and the odd pin here and there to maintain shape where required. And voila! Jersey dried and now it's back to an acceptable size. Hurrah! The best thing is I can use the template whenever I wash the jersey to stop it shrinking. Success! Thanks merziac!
Now I can commence jersey restoration phase #2: replace zipper.