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4 Keys To Keeping Quilts Clean

Summary

Quilting Contessa answers the age old question of what are the best ways to keep your quilts and wall hangings clean. What are your tips?

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4 Keys To Keeping Quilts Clean

Have you made countless quilts and wall hangings and are wondering what some of the tips and tricks are to keeping them looking fresh and clean? Here a few tips:

4 Keys To Keeping Quilts Clean

 

Vacuuming Your Quilts and Wall Hangings

One easy way to keep the dust from accumulating on your quilts is with a vacuum cleaner hose and a knee high stocking or piece of soft sheer netting. Just place the knee high stocking or netting over the vacuum cleaner hose, hold on to it tight, and start your vacuum on the low setting. The stocking or netting will help protect the quilt from pieces pulling loose while helping to keep that nasty dust from piling up especially on the tops of wall hangings. If you have an upholstery attachment for the vacuum, you can clean larger areas of the quilt using that along with the stocking. Please note that this is not advised for extremely fragile antique quilts, or ones that have holes due to wear as you don’t want to further stress damaged areas of your quilt.

Vacuum

 

Fluff Your Quilts in the Dryer

For larger quilts that need freshening, try placing them in your dryer on the "Air Only" setting with a dryer sheet or two. This does not add any heat but can fluff that pesky dust out of your quilts a bit quicker than vacuuming and it also helps them smell just-washed fresh while being very gently on the fabrics and stitching. Note that you will want to make sure not to have any heat on as any soil can be set in the fabrics and batting with the use of heat.

dryer

 

A Visit to the Clothes Line

Some quilters like to take care of their creations “old school” by placing them on the clothesline on a pretty day to air out. This is only a good idea though if you do not have a bird feeder or birdbath nearby because no one wants the birds to leave a “deposit” on their creation. Also try to leave them out for the shortest time possible to air because the sunlight can fade fabrics over time.

clothesline

 

Wash Gently

When necessary, gently wash your quilts by hand or on the most delicate cycle on your machine in cold water using color catchers (usually 2-3 is a good idea). Depending on the types of fabrics used and the batting, you may choose to air dry your quilts or put them on a nice low setting to dry them. If you have used cotton fabrics and cotton batting without prewashing the fabrics and would like to get an “antique” look to the quilt, setting your dryer on a warmer setting will be just the thing to make the fabrics tighten right up and give a bit of a pucker, like quilts of days gone by.

washer

 

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Glossary

Batting
The layer in the middle of a quilt sandwich between the Top and Backing layers consisting of wool, polyester, blends, silk, or cotton.

Same As: Stuffing, Filling, Wadding, Filler
Author
Quilting Contessa

Quilting Contessa is a collection of various authors around the world that have submitted articles for the QuiltingHub 'How To' quilt wiki.  These are authors that do not write enough to have their own authorship, yet provide valuable content for the site.  If you wish to submit an article, contact us on QuiltingHub.

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