Help--Poly Rug Fibers Melted on Iron Transferred to My Quilt Top!
 

I was pressing my quilt top on a work table and placed my iron on the carpeted floor so I could rearrange the top on the table. When I bent over to pick up the iron, I tipped it over briefly, immediately picked it up, and resumed ironing. I didn't really inspect the iron but the sole plate looked clean. However, I think some of the poly fibers in the carpet melted on the edge of the sole plate and transferred to my while background and a mitred yellow border strip.

I can't cover or replace the white background fabric without remaking the entire quilt but I can replace the border strip, with a lot of effort. Any suggestions as to what I can do to remove or minimize the poly residue melted onto the fabric? I wasn't sure dry cleaners would know what to do or if their fix might make things worse. Thanks.

OMG, how awful! I don't know what I'd do, but I'd be sick for sure! Only cleaner I can think of is GooGone, but never used it on cloth before, so not sure how it would come out. Surely someone on here will know. Good Luck.

This doesn't help your quilt, but as far as cleaning your iron: I found a great product at JoAnn's. Made by Dritz, it's called Iron-Off, hot iron cleaner. A medium tube was about $9.00 and it cleaned the iron perfectly w plenty left for several more uses.

Clip a few carpet fibers from a corner of the room and put them into a glass. Pour in a little bit of nail polish remover or acetone to see if the fibers will dissolve. Do this outside and give it some time to work. I used to work in a chemistry lab and we used acetone for dissolving and cleaning all kinds of stuff. Nail polish remover used to be ethyl acetate but I think is now acetone. Just try what you have on hand.

You could also melt some carpet fibers onto a scrap and soak that instead. That would be your next step anyway to see if it would come out of the cotton fiber without affecting the print.

You can get acetone in the paint department of hardware stores and maybe Walmart.

Latrinka--thanks for the commiseration and the suggestion....Decades ago I used Goo Gone to remove gum from kids' clothing and wax stains from tablecloths but never to remove melted poly fibers. It leaves an oily spot which I could sometimes remove successfully, sometimes not...I can and will test various products with samples left over from the quilt, but wanted to check with the experts on this site before testing to see what products or processes they might suggest. The quilt is an applique Dresden, so it won't hold up to a lot of scrubbing, and I am afraid to use hot water for fear it melts the poly even further into the quilt fibers. Thanks again.

Bummer. I have a melted spot on my carpet.

Thanks for the suggestion! I was thinking about the possibility of resorting to acetone. Will test it on a scrap of fabric and then if I have a green light will perhaps move on to the stained border strip I have cut out of the quilt.

If it is melted particles could you put a paper towel down and iron so hopefully it would transfer to the paper towel? It works with wax.