Dear quilters and other fabric folk,
could you please advise me on the safest way to clean a quilt?
I recently inherited this quilt, made for a double bed. It has personal significance, but even if it didn't, it is a beautiful quilt in its own right - the amount of work that went into it is both staggering and inspiring.
It is in fantastic condition as far as I can tell, apart from a few small stains of unknown origin; you can see two examples above the ruler, in the 5-7" area, in the pink and white fabrics. I would guess beverages, but it is a guess. The certainty is, that the stains have been there for a good long time.
In fact, I feel certain the quilt has not been washed or cleaned in years. It has probably been folded up at the bottom of a bed in a spare room. So even if this was good sun-bleaching weather, the entire quilt should still be cleaned in some way, just to get years of what I imagine as sneakily infiltrating dust out of the fabric.
My washer is a front-loader, and I could fit the quilt in it easily, but I wonder about the potential hazards of the spin cycle...?
Thanks very, very much for any and all suggestions!
~~~
