Hermione's Hats

[Robert Jones]

No: HPFGUIDX 78347

I was looking at the picture of Dobby wearing all of Hermione's Hats 
in the American version of OOTP, and a question occurred to me: how 
do the students' clothes at Hogwarts get cleaned?  Wouldn't the 
house elves be picking them up and cleaning them all the time?  (The 
same would have been true for Dobby when he was with the Malfoys.) 
The elves wouldn't be freed by doing this because their masters had 
not directly handed them the clothing.  But then how are the hats 
and socks that Hermione is knitting and hiding around the Gryffindor 
common room supposed to free them, since once again the elves would 
only pick them up themselves?  (Dobby said the elves were annoyed 
and would not clean the Gryffindor common room, but was it just 
because someone was trying to trick them?  They weren't in any 
danger of being freed.)  JKR has made Hermione very brilliant, as 
her analyses in OOTP repeatedly showed -- so wouldn't Hermione think 
of this simple point too?  What am I missing?

Robert Jones (aka Boris the Bewildered)