Originally Posted by
Jan in VA
I have never understood the idea of washing quilts in a bath tub. Quilts are very heavy when wet. How can the "delicate" seams handle being lifted from the water....drained or not....squished/wrung/wrapped in towels/squished again, etc. etc., better than they can handle the soft agitation and spin of a delicates/gentle cycle of a washing machine? Spinning gets much more water out of a quilt in a machine, making it lighter and easier to remove.
With the exception of *one 1860s quilt* which I foolishly washed before testing well, I've NEVER had one 'behave badly' when laundered in a machine with care, whether antique or vintage or recent.
Jan in VA
*2 of the fabrics in this quilt were more fragile than I knew and shattered a bit.
you are absolutely correct about 90% of the quilts out there... but for the few that need to be coddled, the bathtub is a great solution BUT you are supposed to put a clean white sheet under the quilt, with the edges taped up to the wall and the side of the tub... this is all just so you can lift the quilt...i also use the white of the quilt to tell me when i have rinsed it completely... it will be gray after the first rinse, before you put the soap in... each time you move the quilt, the sheet is to take all the weight and stress... and personally, i hang my quilts over 2 lines, no dryer... people don't realize that the dryer is as damaging as any washer...
ps.... i lift the quilt out of the water every time i drain the tub...you don't want the dirty water to settle back into the quilt... it will be really heavy... you may need help to do this... a DH or a DF (friend)...