When I was last in town I couldn’t resist a trip to the local thrift store. I swear, I am addicted to the place. Thankfully things are reasonably priced so we don’t end up in the poor house. This time around, my find was this…
It’s a Grandmother’s Flower Garden Hexie quilt. It isn’t really big-probably twin sized.
It’s not is mint condition but all in all, pretty good condition.
You can see there is a stain to the left in the picture. It’s a little dingy too. I really should wash it but I’m not sure what the best way to go about that would be. Any suggestions??
Kelli and I both really admired the design that was used for finishing the edge on the top and bottom.
All in all…I think $30 was a pretty cheap price. I am almost wondering if someone new was pricing things as typically this would have been more like $60.
For now, it’s upstairs on my stack of antique quilts….Have I told you how much I love my thrift stores???
I have used an oxiclean soak for old dingy linens with great success. Dissolve the oxiclean in a few cups of hot water, stir to dissolve then add cold water to lukewarm. make sure to have enough to cover item. soak in a bucket for quite a while even overnight. Every so often I swish it around. If still dingy overnight drain off the first water and make a second and soak another day. Then launder. This worked on old embroidered pillowcases and crocheted doilies.
I love that quilt. I’ve been thinking of doing a GFG but never thought of doing it with just 2 colours and I love pink. So this really caught my eye. Lucky catch!
put it in the bathtub with a gentle soap.. let it soak then swish it around gently with your hands… let water run out… rinse, etc.. then when as much of the water has run out by itself.. then gently squeeze the rest of the water out. dont wring it.
Was it at The Depot? Forget Disney World. I think that is the happiest place on Earth!
That is a pretty quilt. The pink and blue look so good together. Time to start looking at thrift stores. On the East coast here, not sure there would be that many quilts–not at that price for sure. Good buy. Think Ruby is claiming this one for herself.
A very pretty quilt and a bargain to boot. Looks like Ruby is all better, yes? She is such a cutie!
Beautiful! Wish I could thrift shop with you! I never find good stuff for such good prices! I am very interested in how it was bound…I’m working on a hexie table topper. It’s my first hexagon project and I’m not sure how I should bind it. Always so nice to see Ruby! She’s a doll!
I have had good luck with oxyclean or one of the quilt soaps dissolved in the washer, always in cold water, so as not to set stains. Fill to highest level with water, then just let the quilt soak, overnight. Most gentle cycle. NO agitation. Then spin the dirty water out. Repeat as often as needed till the soak water looks clean. Again, no agitation as these old quilts are very delicate. Then fill with clean rinse water 2-3 times, soaking to let the rinse water saturate the quilt. I sometimes add a cup of white vinegar to cut the soap. I then very carefully and gently remove the heavy, wet quilt from the washer. After inspection, if it is as clean as I think I can get it, I put it in my dryer on a moderate to low heat and dry till almost dry and remove and finish with air drying. This goes against all advice given to wash in bathtub, etc. but I personally found that to be a very laborious and unsatisfactory method. I’ve restored several inherited quilts this way with great results. Two caveats: not to be done on quilts in very poor condition, unless they can be repaired to a more sturdy condition, or in case you might have a bleeder fabric. I did extensive restoration work on one quilt (mending tears, and cutting off rotten edges, resquaring, new backing over the old, and requilting and new binding before cleaning), which, quite frankly, I would never have attempted had it not been a family quilt. It turned out beautifully and was well worth the trouble. All but one of numerous stains were eliminated and that last one is almost invisible now, and the colors are bright as new, and the dirt is no longer in the quilt cutting and rotting the fibers. I did have one unexpected bleeder on another quilt, a bright turquoise fabric, and I had to soak and spin it 6 times to get out the staining on the cream background fabric. But again, it was well worth it. The staining came out, and the quilt was sparkling clean and bright, and smelled so much better. This particular quilt had never been used or washed, but because it was so old, it had collected much dirt in the fibers, and that would have caused deterioration of the fibers in future years. I have had a university level class in Historical Textile Preservation which taught the bathtub method, but I never was impressed with the results. But, I don’t work in a museum, and am taking the risk with my personal textiles. Hope some of these ideas will prove useful to someone.
I will also vouch for a good ocyclean soak and launder on gentle cycle. I do the oxyclean soak in my washer (the soak cycle on my machine does a quick agitate, then leaves the item to soak for however long you want – I usually do overnight)