Help! Cleaning Soot from Quilts
 

Hi Everyone,

I am new to posting on this board but know from being a loyal follower that you are all a vast wealth of information. I have a dilemma and am hoping that someone can help. A friend recently had a chimney fire in her home. Fortunately the house was left intact but everything throughout the house is now blanketed in soot, including a number of her quilts. Does anyone have any experience with cleaning a soot-covered quilt, and have suggestions for the best method? These quilts are mostly cotton (one is microfiber), machine pieced and machine appliquéd. I have read in the past that cotton quilts should not be sent to the dry cleaner. I've tried looking this up online; most of what I can find suggests starting by carefully vacuuming to remove the excess soot without forcing it into the fibers - that does make sense to me. I would think that the next step would have to be washing - if anyone has done this I'm wondering how (by machine, by hand?) and most important, with what? I have read that soot tends to be oily - what would best remove it without damaging the quilts? Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

This is just supposition, as I have not had this happen. If soot has oil in it, I might think that dish washing liquid may be something to try. Before washing the quilts, you could get some fabric and add some soot and practice with that. I wish her good luck. I would hate to have that happen to any of my hard work.

Like original blue Dawn dish soap. Oh, what a horrible thing to happen"""""

Good luck in removing the soot and the smell.

I agree with Tartan. Vacuum off as much as you can then read the instruction on the Retro Pack. I just bought some but haven't tried it. Walmart had a small 4 oz package of this product. You can always have it shipped to your local store for pickup.

I agree with vacuuming first. I have had amazing luck with Oxy clean. It has removed everything that I have tried it on. I would, however, do a test first. If she does wash it with Oxy, use a soaking mode first and then cold rinse. If the marks are not removed, do not use the dryer but air dry it and try something else. Good luck. This is an awful thing to happen.

Does she have insurance that covers the damage? If so, perhaps a disaster cleanup company would have a source for professional cleaning.

Thank you everyone for your helpful replies. I know my friend will be very appreciative, and I will keep you posted on how her quilts turn out.

If she's insured the house restoration company should be taking care of this (and even clothes--or at least give them directions on how to deal with it)--but I think Tartan is on target. If there is an oil in it, I've used a product that I used on my mechanic son's shirts to get out oil stain on a quilt--but did so with a cotton swab and little dabs--not sure it would be good for a whole quilt.