Mildew on an old quilt
 

A friend of mine has asked how to get mildew out of an old quilt. Someone told her salt and lemon juice. Any suggestions?

http://laundry.about.com/u/sty/laund...tage-Quilt.htm Basically states to shake out quilts outside, use very hot water to kill the mildew, then you might have to treat the stains.

Vinegar will kill the mildew and get rid of the smell and won't hurt the quilt. For any stains that are still there, google "remove mildew stains from fabric" and you'll find several ideas.

I would use Retro Clean: http://www.retroclean.com . It would be safe to use. Often mildew stains (the little black dots) will not come out of fabric. You don't want to weaken the fabric trying to get those stains out.

I would vote for RetroClean, also. It worked on two quilts, three aprons and a lot of other things like dresser scarves. It removed all the yellowing and cat urine that had been washed and dried (unknowingly). The cat urine (oh, ick, ick,ick) didn't come out with Tide and Oxyclean, so broke down and bought the RetroClean. Worked like a charm and that one packet did clean up a lot of things. No mildew, but thinking it would be worth a try. Mildew is a very tough smell to annihilate.

I checked out RetroClean and the main ingredient is Sodium Perborate Most of the info on that ingredient is in chemical speak. lol but what I (and I am not a chemist) got out of it is it turns into hydrogen peroxide or something similar. Bet the peroxide is cheaper. I have been keeping a spray bottle of peroxide with my laundry things and using it instead of stain sprays and I can tell you it has worked great for me. I bought some old muslin curtains in a thrift store and they were dirty and stained. It took the majority of the stains out of them. I washed them first then sprayed with the peroxide and left them hanging over the fence in the sun. I was amazed at how well it worked.

Good luck, I had some quilts that got wet and I never could get all the mildew stains out.

The lemon and salt is a good idea, but you need to place the quilt in the sun with it. Good luck, I hope something works for you

Try this, spray area with soda water and lay the quilt in the grass on a sunny day. Has to be on the grass.