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coraaI know a number of you are knowledgeable at fabrics, fabric preservation, and textile history, so I pose this question to you:
One of my wedding presents, from my mother's parents, was a vintage crazy quilt. This quilt was made in 1887 by my great-great-grandmother: it's a beautiful crazy quilt, decorated with embroidery. (Among the embroidered flowers, leaves, butterflies, and abstract patterns, there are a cross, a Star of David, and a crescent moon and star. I guess great-great-grandmother Anne Eliza was an early multiculturalist, or something! Or, well, she copied the patterns from somewhere—still.) I am very honored and very lucky, of course, that my grandmother chose to give it to me, and it's very important to me both as a piece of family history and as a beautiful old quilt.
Anyway. The quilt is in excellent condition, apart from some small sections of shattered silk (which I understand is pretty common for silk of the period). It's not badly faded or falling-apart fragile, and can be gently handled. It's also very clean, so I don't need to worry about that.
I would like to keep it in that condition! (Ideally, I'll be able to pass this on to my own children/grandchildren.) So that's my first question: what should I do to keep this quilt in good condition? I'm going to assume that protection from humidity, UV and moths are high up there on the List of Things to Pay Attention To, but I'm no expert.
Second: if possible to do so without badly damaging the quilt, I'd love to be able to display it. I was thinking of displaying it on the wall in the bedroom, which is a fairly dim room to begin with (it's positioned such that it gets almost no direct sunlight) and which has a section of wall that's high enough up that it would be safe from cats. This is secondary because, if displaying it in a way that will protect it is beyond my budget (for instance, if I'd need to get it framed with UV-protective glass, which I imagine would cost a pretty penny), I'll store it in a way that protects it less expensively for now, and save up for the display in the future.
I am more than willing to do research of my own—I just know nothing about the subject and don't know how to start. Pointers to resources are more than welcome! (And if the answer is 'take it to an expert,' then help figuring out how to find a reputable expert would also be welcome.)
I'll take pictures of the quilt to show later (I want to get it in natural light), but I wanted to get the ball rolling on figuring out the best way to preserve it now.
One of my wedding presents, from my mother's parents, was a vintage crazy quilt. This quilt was made in 1887 by my great-great-grandmother: it's a beautiful crazy quilt, decorated with embroidery. (Among the embroidered flowers, leaves, butterflies, and abstract patterns, there are a cross, a Star of David, and a crescent moon and star. I guess great-great-grandmother Anne Eliza was an early multiculturalist, or something! Or, well, she copied the patterns from somewhere—still.) I am very honored and very lucky, of course, that my grandmother chose to give it to me, and it's very important to me both as a piece of family history and as a beautiful old quilt.
Anyway. The quilt is in excellent condition, apart from some small sections of shattered silk (which I understand is pretty common for silk of the period). It's not badly faded or falling-apart fragile, and can be gently handled. It's also very clean, so I don't need to worry about that.
I would like to keep it in that condition! (Ideally, I'll be able to pass this on to my own children/grandchildren.) So that's my first question: what should I do to keep this quilt in good condition? I'm going to assume that protection from humidity, UV and moths are high up there on the List of Things to Pay Attention To, but I'm no expert.
Second: if possible to do so without badly damaging the quilt, I'd love to be able to display it. I was thinking of displaying it on the wall in the bedroom, which is a fairly dim room to begin with (it's positioned such that it gets almost no direct sunlight) and which has a section of wall that's high enough up that it would be safe from cats. This is secondary because, if displaying it in a way that will protect it is beyond my budget (for instance, if I'd need to get it framed with UV-protective glass, which I imagine would cost a pretty penny), I'll store it in a way that protects it less expensively for now, and save up for the display in the future.
I am more than willing to do research of my own—I just know nothing about the subject and don't know how to start. Pointers to resources are more than welcome! (And if the answer is 'take it to an expert,' then help figuring out how to find a reputable expert would also be welcome.)
I'll take pictures of the quilt to show later (I want to get it in natural light), but I wanted to get the ball rolling on figuring out the best way to preserve it now.
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-26 11:52 pm (UTC)The place where I'd like to display it never gets direct sunlight (the angle of the room is such that what light does come through the window never falls on that wall), so it looks like I have some leeway in being able to display there.
While I figure out display, it looks like wrapping in acid-free paper and storing in a ventilated box in the cat-free closet will keep it from deteriorating while I plan long-term display.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-27 12:10 am (UTC)I wonder if you could find or make some kind of contraption that holds it up by squeezing the entire top couple of inches between two felted pieces of wood (like how wooden pants hangers work).
no subject
Date: 2010-10-27 12:21 am (UTC)More to consider, thank you!
no subject
Date: 2010-10-27 12:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-27 02:34 pm (UTC)That being said: you're not a museum and probably don't want to go to *that* much effort. :) I'd store it horizontally, rolled with acid-free tissue on an acid-free tube (and change the tissue yearly, and the tube every few years, as they absorb acids and lose their acid-free quality).
If you don't have the room to store a tube horizontally, or can't get your hands on a tube, fold it gently, lightly crushing acid-free paper into loose wads, and stuff the folds with the wads so they're not sharp, but rounded. Layer more tissue between the quilt layers so that the quilt is not touching itself, and put it into an acid-free box. (And still change the tissue yearly, and the box a bit less often - check it periodically, and if you see discoloration on the tissue or box, it's time to change!)
For display, assuming you don't want to go to the trouble of any of the backings to hang it, I'd think the idea of draping it over a long dowel of sufficient width to distribute the weight so it's not all concentrated in one thin area (and periodically moving/rotating the quilt to move the weight around) should be sufficient, although someone with more recent knowledge than I might know better.
The site linked above says textiles should be vacuumed periodically to remove dirt: yes, but NOT straight! You could destroy or damage fibers that way. If you can get your hands on a low-power vacuum like a Dustbuster, then wrap a couple of layers of gauze around the mouth of it and secure with a rubber band, that's more the style of vacuum you should use for old textiles. If it's especially fragile, or if your Dustbuster is still too powerful, don't apply the vacuum directly to the textile, instead get a wide, soft paintbrush, hold the gauze-wrapped vacuum parallel to the surface, and brush the fabric gently with the brush towards the mouth of the vacuum so that any dust and dirt you dislodge will be sucked up. You'll probably need to move the gauze around as it gets soiled. :)
And I know all that about the vacuum because I VERY CAREFULLY avoided a project at a museum I worked at while in school, which was to clean and re-store their huge textile collection and OH DEAR GOD I did not want to do all that careful brushing and vacuuming after the process was explained to me (and they had a special vacuum with a very low suck rate and a very tiny mouth to use). I stuck with the catalog database instead.
ETA: I'm leery of mothballs nearby because of the gasses they put out. I have no *reason* to know if they're harmful to objects, and someone who knows the chemistry might be able to confirm they're OK, but when I worked at a long=neglected museum in South Dakota, my coworker and I got rid of all the mothballs and left the cabinets open to aerate, because we were suspicious of the odors.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-27 12:51 am (UTC)...don't forget the box should also be acid-free. And be sure there aren't any cockroaches or mice. Mothballs should do.