Covid 19 and gifting quilts
 

Recently my dear aunt tested positive for the Coronavirus. She has worked diligently to provide quilts for family, friends, and many others. While her symptoms are mild, she is still receiving treatment during her two week quarantine. What does she need to to do to prevent virus transmission to others as she still would like to gift her lovely quilts? Does a machine wash in laundry detergent followed by drying them thoroughly suffice? What do professional quilt makers recommend to their customers?
Thank you to all for your thoughtful and helpful responses

Our local library quarantines books for 4 days and health department says that is enough. Non-perishable groceries spend a few days in the trunk of the car before coming in my house. Masks are washed and spend a day in the sun.
Suggest your aunt bag finished quilts and let them sit for a few days (away from her), before a non-positive person sends or delivers them.

thank you. This does put things in a better and more reasonable perspective

Good question. I make a large number of donation quilts and have wondered about the safety of donating to families that may be vulnerable already. I am not Covid positive but it is good to know that there is a guideline for our books, quilts and so on.

My local Linus Project is still accepting donations, and asking that they be put in large, sealed bags which they then leave sit for a couple of days before opening. So sounds like a 2 day in a sealed bag would be ok.

Wash and dry the quilts. Most of us repeatedly lick our fingers to slide and line up pieces of fabric. Detergent and heated dry should take care of it for COVID, as should be done with any completed quilt otherwise for exactly this sanitary reason.

This is very good information. Though I am not COVID positive one never knows when things can change in a heartbeat. I have been housebound since March and have to remain so because of an autoimmune disease. The disease is all around me in friends and family, work and play. I am glad I am so isolated. Know this is very important to all of us. Thanks for sharing this valuable information.

I would wash them in the washer on regular cycle with detergent and then place in dryer...then I would put it in a bag.....I would then gift it and tell the receiver of the quilt to open the bag, not shake out the quilt, and place it in her own washer and run through a regular wash cycle with detergent and then in the dryer. I would think this would work as the officials washing clothes in washer with detergant kills the virus

The info I read earlier, was to not put things like our masks in plastic bags, as the virus would have a nice warm place to go forth and multiply!

For masks, they suggested a clean paper bag was a better storage location than plastic.

Thus for quilts, I would think the same concept ..... Launder in as hot as water as possible. Likewise, as hot as possible in the dryer.




Maybe the best advice for your Aunt would be to ask those treating her and giving her the medical advice as to the best procedures for her personal laundry and items such as her quilts.

Good health to your Aunt, yourself and your family.



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The nursing home I visit puts the N 95 masks in a paper bag to be reused when you next visit. Also, my late spouse's Oncologist's office made up a set of 5 masks for each of their employees when masks were in short supply. They labeled each paper bag with the employee's name and day of the week. They said they were following the CDC recommendations on how to safely re-use masks. They needed to rest for 7 days. Of course, that was early in the year. We know more now than we did then. I don't know if the COVID virus can multiply or live in a plastic bag, but I would use paper if possible.

However, finding a paper bag large enough for a quilt might be a challenge. Maybe you could just wrap it up with some sort of wrapping paper for it's "quarantine time".

bkay

I think one of the issues with plastic bags is that if there is any moisture, the moisture does not escape and mold can grow. I think that is way it is suggested to not store fabric or quilts in plastic bags but rather in something that will allow some airflow like a pillow case. I live up north so moisture is not a problem in winter...have to run a humidifier so my nose doesn't dry out. but I don't store any fabric in the basement as that does get damp in the summer.

I would think that if handwashing for 20-30 seconds lathering well that the virus would be killed. So I'd think that simply washing with soap/detergent and water and then drying as usual would be fine. We need to respect this virus not cower in fear.

My understanding is that the foam in soaps kills the virus (thus the 20 second hand washing) so a good washing in the washer should kill the virus. We were told to wash clothes after wearing them out. There was no advice that I heard about having to quarantine the clothing.

Moisture is Covid s friend. Dry is the enemy. Covid sits inside microdroplets of water. This is why we mask up. Completely involuntarily we exhale these microdroplets with every breath. They are caught in the cloth. (Watch yourself create little puffs of "smoke" when you talk outside on cold winter days. Compare with and without mask).

So on the oaper_these microdroplets can dry... killing the Covid. Plastic it won't dry.

What about hanging the quilts outside on a clothesline for a few days? Then bagging in plastic or paper?

Thank you to all for your excellent answers. It seems Nurse Nightingale was correct again: Good old soap and water does tend to take care of MOST infectious spread I also think that when washing, use the largest
Water cycle available on your washer as it follows the theory of pollution resolution solutions involve dilution. The more water added, the less the viral concentration

Th as nk you to all.