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!