This is one of the blocks my Grandmother made over 35 years ago. It was found in her attic when we cleaned her house. My Grandmother was a hoarder.....so this block was buried under lots of other stuff. Its stained and the material she made it on is flimsy to say the least. I think it is muslin....that's what the lady at the fabric store thought too. So far what I've done is to place these blocks on a new piece of muslin and sew them on that. This one though is so stained. I've tried everything I thought was safe to wash it in and this does not come out. I'm wondering if it would look ok to just cut Sue out and machine applique her on a new block? Or should I just leave it alone and deal with the stain? For some reason photobucket is not working for me so this is on flickr and it won't do a picture for me.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7232276@N03/3887095814

You can probably snip the threads and replace her on new muslim

I have some old blocks made in the 30's by my MIL. I plan to lay them on muslin and frame them, not trying to clean them, but to make them into something her great-grandchildren can have as a remembrance of her.
June

I don't know anything about applique, but cutting her out and putting her on a new piece of fabric sounds good to me.

I know you said you have tried eveything to clean them, but I have great success using a mixture of white vinegar and baking soda. If that doesn't work maybe the next best thing would be to snip her out and use a new background.

this one will be going into a lap quilt. Everything else is done except fixing Sue. I was just going to leaver her be but seeing her in the middle of the new blocks makes her look even worse.

Ginnie,

I would be concerned that "machine applique" would look odd if your Grandmother did her applique by hand. I think you've got some great advice already, but try the vinegar & baking soda thing first. If that fails, then I would carefully clip Sue off her background and re-stitch her to a new background, using the same technique Grandma used. If you think she calls too much attention to herself now, she's bound to call even more to herself if you use a "foreign" technique to re-apply her.

I would also be worried that perhaps machine applique here might damage Sue herself even more. If the fabrics are fragile, all that piercing by a machine might damage her beyond salvation.

Just my thoughts, but I'm confident that you will eventually come up with the right solution to your problem.

Good Luck!

Odessa

i was thinking the same thing :D

I haven't tried baking soda and vinegar! will do that today. Its only the muslin that is fragile. The other fabric seems to be in good shape.

I wouldn't clip sue off at all. I would be worried it wold never look right. I would trim the muslin around sue about 1/4 inch and turn that under and restitch right over her onto new background.