My 24-year old son works with sound equipment in his daily work. Today I was with him when he was pulling some speakers and such out of his trailer when I noticed him tossing some blankets aside. This one caught my eye and I had a fit when I saw it was a handmade quilt! I asked about it and he said it was "just a blanket" they used for packing equipment that was left in the trailer when he bought it. UGH! I can't believe he wouldn't realize his momma would 'need' to rescue it! So I gave him a REAL old blanket and took this one live safely in my home. LOL

Now, it is dirty (as you can imagine) and has a number of holes in it. Some of the quilting is coming out and the patchwork pieces are coming off in some places. But someone took the time to make this and I will not abandon it! So ladies, how do I clean it? Do I clean it? How do I save this piece of work? Help!

Congrats for saving that baby...great find

If the batting is showing through,mhand stitch some tulle over it to preserve it, then wash the whole thing in Orvis Soap, air dry it and then repair it properly.
"Properly" means match up the fabs as best as you can. It doesn't look that old so you should be able to come close.

what a find. I would do as karen said and cover any exposed batting then give it a good clean maybe soak it in preen or the equivilant that you have on the US preen is a stain remover that you can soak it in then rinse or wash gently. then air dry it and patch it the best you can with the best match you can find. hope it comes up great looking.

That is soo cute. Sounds like you need to give your DS s swift kick in the pants to not realize that you needed to see that! :lol: It will be great for you to rescue those cuties.

cuteQ

Wow...fabulous save Mom! Is there a label? Is it handmade? If it is antique do you want to use it, sell it, maybe get some professional advice? If so don't do anything before having it appraised.

Or, maybe you are like me and many others...fix it, keep it, use it and love it. Firstly I am no expert...however, if it were mine I would go over it thoroughly to see exactly where the problem areas are and mark them with safety pins. Now, the dirt part, is it "clean" dirt or "really yucky dirt"...dust and grime I could stand (therefore mend first), but anything else, probably not. If you wanted to clean it before fixing the damage you need to stabilise the worn/torn bits so once you have them marked, cut muslin or other non-coloured scrap and baste it with white cotton all over the damaged bits...make sure all your "marker" pins are removed and then it could be gently washed. I have successfully used this method on vintage clothing/eiderdowns and linens.

I would be very interested to see what everyone else would recommend. Please keep us posted and let us know what you decide. How exciting.

Nice...one man's junk is anothers treasure as they say

After looking it over preetty good, it has some surface dirt but one or two places that I might have to give personal up close attention to. It is definitely handmade and looks to be maybe a first quilt as the stitching lines are not straight all over. It is all machine stitched. The appliques are held on by a zigzag stitch. There are so many holes in it but I will 'cover' each one before trying to clean it. I don't know what I will do with it but I just didn't want it to be left in a trailer of sound equipment!! LOL

Wow! Terrific find!

As others have mentioned, you want to repair and patch first.

Before washing, I would want to test the colorfastness of that dark blue and the red. Take a piece of white fabric, dampen it, and rub the blue and red fabrics to see if any dye transfers to the white. If you get any dye transfer, you need to take extra precautions while the quilt is in the water and also while it is still damp.

For the staining, you might want to consider using Retro Clean. Here is the website with information about it:
http://www.retroclean.com

You can wash the quilt in a top-loading washing machine as long as you do not allow the machine to agitate. Stop the machine and hand agitate by pushing down on the quilt. Change the control to "spin" to spin out soapy water. Do the same with the rinse cycle. The spin cycle is not too hard on a quilt, but the machine agitation cycle is very hard on a quilt.

I would probably use Synthrapol rather than Orvus just because I would be very concerned about that blue fabric possibly bleeding into the water. Synthrapol will help prevent it from settling into the other fabrics.

Do not machine dry. Lay a sheet out on grass in the shade outside, or indoors on carpeting. Lay the quilt on top. If outside, cover the quilt with a couple more sheets to protect it from bird droppings and the fading effects of sunlight; anchor corners and edges with stones. If indoors, there is no need to cover but you want to provide a fan to speed drying (so there is no chance of mold developing from the batting staying damp too long). Turn the quilt over at least once to ensure complete drying.