Picture Quilt
 

My friend has a photo quilt someone made her years ago. The person who made it never treated the fabric before running it through the printer nor did she heat set it. It is now a little soiled but obviously cannot be washed. Is there anything we can do to it so it can be laundered?

Diana

I would take a soft damp cloth and gently sponge/dab the fabric in a lower corner to see if any of the print comes up. If it does, then I would just gently brush the photo quilt with a very soft duster.

Thank you for your help, but we did try the damp cloth and it comes up. I am afraid that the quilt has years of dust on it and dusting it won't help. She has it folded up in her closet and it's a shame because it's beautiful.

Can you put in a dryer on low heat with a few towels (not damp) and let it run, even add a tennis ball or two? That will "beat" it a little and get rid of alot of the dust.

You can lay screening over the quilt on the floor, then use a vacuum cleaner on its lightest setting to vacuum out the dust. The screening keeps the quilt from being sucked up. I believe screening is fairly inexpensive at the hardware store.

You can also try putting a nylon stocking over the end of the vacuum, using the lightest setting the vacuum has. I'm just not sure the dust will get past the nylon stocking.

Thank you all for the replies. I am going to try the dryer. I have done drapes that way in the past and it usually worked very well.

You might want to use a really big laundromat dryer -- more room for the quilt to fluff itself out.