Salt sweater patch- after 5th washing.
left: salt sweater + 5 times washed patch ~ right: red and cream crenelle sweater + once washed patchI used to recommend dry cleaning for all my leather patched sweaters. Mostly because leather can be finicky, and I wasn't sure how it would react to water + soap. I really don't care much for dry-cleaning (it's an ucky process) and I've had many a crappy experience at the cleaners (including one lady who put two of my sweaters in a solution that felted them completely...then kept denying it... even with me sticking the sweaters she felted and a non felted sweater — all in the same size — in her face...wtf). So, I've been looking into other ways of cleaning my sweaters for the past few months....
I'm happy to say (after testing numerous sweaters) that it's safe + cool to hand-wash the be-patched sweaters. Hand-washing is pretty awesome. Not only is it nice and gentle on the natural fibers, but the sweaters get better and better with each washing. With each washing, the merino/cotton sweaters are softer + drape better and the veg-tanned leather butters up, becomes more flexible and gets a pebbled texture. I'm a big fan of anything that gets better with wash and wear, and the sweaters certainly do.
I'm working on a sweater care page, with (hopefully) a photographed step-by-step hand-washing tutorial. Keep an eye out for it in the next couple weeks.