The antique Star of Bethlehem Quilt was brought to us for repair, a family heiroom.

Above, before treatment, left, and after, right.
Note that I rotated the before image so it aligns with the cleaned
quadrants of the after image.  I found it impossible to keep track of the four
quadrants after the post-it marker was lost moving the quilt one day!

The quilt is a beautiful example of a traditional pattern that goes back to the 1800s.  Made of hundreds of small diamonds called a rhombus, culled in pulsating patterns, it is a challenging pattern.

The added bonus are the four corners, where our client’s seamstress showed her hand-stitching skills a beautiful floral pattern, shown right, which Kate began calling the Sun (in juxtaposition to the star).

The entire quilt is hand-stitched, not machine quilted, no small feat.

ASSESSMENT

To assess and with intention to repair the quilt in an orderly fashion (best laid plans), Kate divided the quilt into four quarters, but as she worked on it the quarters were change, and the right-facing side of the before images below became the bottom two quadrants.

Shown below, the four quarters:

The quilt is in good condition when you consider it was used on a bed daily and is over a century old!  Several issues stand out, however:

1) An occasional rip or threadbare area, which Kate tried to stitch in all cases.  As careful as she was during the assessment, she still found a few threadbare areas while stitching seam repairs, usually in very pale pieces, or on the white areas around the star itself.

2) The biggest issue is loosened stitches on the seams between the rhombus fabric pieces, example shown right.  In the assessment images these are indicated by the small bits of green paper with no writing on them.  Kate advised a not-to-exceed budget be allocated for the restitching of some of those indicated, and she would make the determination as she was stitching which areas actually need to be restitched.

The loosened stitches were overwhelmingly in the bottom half of the quilt, probably because at one time it may have been held while hanging in a manner that pulled the weight, or this was typically at the top or side of the bed, and so pulled or sat on more frequently.

Kate would not remove existing stitches, but over-stitch between viable but loose stitches.

We noticed that there were several areas which had been previously repaired, such as the one shown left.

3) The quilt is extremely dirty, and we are advising hand-washing.  There are several stains, and it is unlikely, given they have been in the quilt for decades, that they can be completely removed, but the general accumulated dirt should release and they will be lessened.

The stains appear to be spills, mostly, tea or coffee, and blood spots, shown image 4 above, and unknown stains, image five above.

In Quadrant Three, there is new puppy urine, shown in the first three images above.  Kate assumed this was new because it still had a strong urine smell to it, so it had never been washed out.  Examples below:

ASSESSED ISSUES:

Not all issues are shown below.  Quadrants have changed.

Quarter 1 (now Quarter 2)

12 sides loosened; 2 small rips or tears or threadbare areas to repair:

Quarter 2 (now Quarter 3)

10 sides loosened; 1 sizable rips /hole in body and into the edging to repair:

Quarter 3 (now Quarter 4)

15 sides loosened; 3 small rips or tears; 1 sizable rip in the edging to repair; and lastly, one area (sixth image) which has some quilting stitches missing, and I would like to restitch them to complete the “sun”:

Quarter 4 (now Quarter 1)

18 sides loosened:

FOXING

We do see some foxing, shown left.  Foxing exhibits as a small dot-like stain that many people think is an odd rust stain.  Zerophilic fungi create the rust-colored spots, which are not rust, but the result of a melanin type exudate.  Foxing cannot harm living beings, as in family members or pets, but foxing can be spread from one item to another, though not easily nor quickly.

Note: It cannot be removed.  BTW, do not use bleach, ever, on foxing.

This means that if you display a quilt with foxing on a wall, for instance, it should be placed in a room separate from other old quilts, not near a library area, and not near other hanging textiles.  Wash your hands before handling other textiles or paper.

TREATMENT

REPARATION

In this post we are showing a smattering of examples of treatment, not all the areas treated, as they would be boring, many many images of stitching seams!

Stitching loose seams come in small areas, above, to areas of 4-5 rows of loose stitches, below.

Above, process images of one of the lower areas in Quadrant Three where the center branches out into the star points; the point where the two meet is where the most stitches were loose.  In this case five rows of rhombus pieces of fabric had to be stitched.

Kate made sure that all areas were stitched by placing silk pins in the seam areas that needed to be tightened, so she could see the area from left to right, top to bottom:  red polka dot, apricot floral, orange floral, pink floral and black polka dot are the rows that were stitched in this quadrant.

A small quilt needle was used to stitch the 1/32″ stitches.

Right, a small threadbare area exposed during stitching and repaired.

Note: For some reason in many images both with and without flash the red-with-white-polka-dot pieces look purple; below, the color is much closer to accurate.  

Above, process images of a large hole and rip both front and backside being stitched;
Below, the area after treatment and before cleaning.

Holes…

Stitching…

After sewing.

After sewing.

One of many small threadbare holes in the white body of the quilt, above.  When I saw them, I stitched them!

WASHING

The Star Quilt had been washed by our client’s parent long ago, and we were not concerned about dye movement.  Had we not had this information, we would have tested a small portion of the quilt, especially the reds and greens, which are most likely to move in wet solutions.

Washing a delicate quilt should be undertaken by someone with patience, and hand washed only.  Do not dry clean, because dry cleaning is a submersion and agitation in a chemical, and is not advised for antique fabrics in general.

Because of the relatively new puppy urine (new enough that it still retained a strong smell). Kate gently hung the quilt on a stand and rinsed it thoroughly with cold water on a gentle spray, shown above right.  There was no sense in adding that to the first wash.

It was placed in a clean bin and the detergent added, shown left; the agitation was by hand and gently, up and down in about 10-inches of cold water, making sure the quilt was thoroughly cleaned.

That water was discarded, and it was brown.  A second filling of lesser detergent and cold water was added, and a second agitation.  The water still came out slightly brown, but we were ready to rinse.

The water was completely emptied and refilled six times.  Each time Kate checked the water as it was dumped until the water ran clear with no tinge; otherwise she placed the quilt back in for more rinsing.

The quilt was rinsed thoroughly a dozen times, until the water was clean.  It is important for the water to be clean so there is no residue of dirt left in the cleaned quilt.

It was then pulled out on top of a clean towel, and allowed to sit on top of and allowed to drain for two hours, which removed a good portion of the remaining water as it dripped  down the sides.

It was then laid out on a clean sheet and allowed to dry flat for several days, shown right, until it was completely dry.

Above, the stain in the third quadrant, left,
and the same area shown after cleaning, center and detail right.  

The most dramatic area that came clean was the urine stain, shown above, before and after.  Kate was uncertain how much of the stain was gone when it was wet during the cleaning, and was thrilled with the stain removal when it was finally dry!

One note about what the urine did which was not reversible, shown left.  The pale apricot print was bleached by the urine.  It did not effect any of the others dyes in the quilt, thankfully, but that one print faded.  Showing it using a flash, right, so the print can be better seen.

AFTER

Note: Below, if there are areas that show a longish light brown “stain”,
it is actually a shadow from Kate’s arm taking images.  No matter how Kate
lit the quilt, a shadow continued to show up!

After treatment, above.

The quilt is not a true square, which is why is looks a bit wonky.  The lower right white square is a little smaller than the others.  The point is, sewing is rarely an exact science, a point of which Kate was reminded frequently in this project.

Center, above.

The center had almost no issues, and the couple of small sewing areas done in the “center” were documented in the quadrant it lay within.

First Quadrant, above.

Second Quadrant, above.

Third Quadrant, above.

The Third Quadrant had both large tears and/or fresh stains.

Right, the finished rip at the bottom was approximately 3/4″ square, in the white field.  A longer small rip lay within the red rhombus fabric.

Below, the areas after the stain was removed, and the apricot rhombus fabric which was bleached, we assume, by the urine.

Fourth Quadrant, above.

 dkatiepowell@aol.com / mitchellrpowell@aol.com
503.970.2509 / 541.531.2383
©MPF Conservation.  May be printed for your own use.
Notify us if you repost, and use our url + copyright in reference.