I'm working on a quilt rescue right now. My customer had 29 dresden plate blocks made my her grandmother. They are about 80 years old. The block fabric is white, but many of them were yellowed. I washed one in Oxy and it came out beaautifully white. So I soaked the rest of them in a washing machine with oxy and detergent. I rinsed them the same way. But do not agitate them. I then layed them out to air dry. I used starch to iron them and squared them up.
After folding 1/4" under on all four sides, I machine applqued them onto an all white background fabric ( wide backing actually) Then quilted it as a whole cloth quilt.
I'm making two - one down, and quilting the other right now.