How to Wash & Care for your quilt
This how-to is for those people who, like me, are nervous about washing your quilts. For those of you who are old pros, feel free to read, but you might be rolling your eyes at this one (you might just want to skip to the end to read “how to store”).
I’m going to be honest: the idea of washing my hand made quilts used to make me panic. I treated the washing machine like the Bermuda Triangle, where mysteries abound and anything could happen (“there be dragons”). But, never fear! Taking care of your quilt is easy as pie, so feel free to use them, to love them, to put them to good use. Because you can always throw them in the wash.
Note: before we get into how to wash and take care of your quilts, I have one important thing to say. My confidence in washing my quilts rests firmly on the fact that I prewash and iron ALL my fabrics. I know folks say you don’t have to do this anymore, that modern fabrics are colorfast and don’t have an excess of starch or nasty chemicals you need to remove first. That’s nice and all, but I don’t know about that for a fact. And I’ve had modern fabrics bleed in the wash when prewashing, so until that stops happening, I won’t stop prewashing.
Materials
A quilt that needs to be cleaned
A gentle detergent
Shout Color Catcher
How to Clean
Inspect
Before you toss your quilt in the wash, make sure to give it a thorough look see. If you’ve got any odd threads, make sure to trim them down; if any of the quilting has come loose or if your binding has gotten a little too much wear and tear, now is the time to tend to that. Make sure to mend any tears or open seams before washing so that no part of the quilt could snag when being washed.
Test
Test your detergent by putting a diluted drop of it on the fabric; if there is any change to the color of the fabric (or if it rubs off) then find a milder detergent.
Wash
It’s time to wash the quilt and the name of the game is “cold and gentle.” Whether you’re washing by hand or by machine, you’ll want to wash as gently as possible, with a gentle detergent, using cold water.
By machine: use the gentlest setting in your machine using cold water, for me, this means the delicate cycle with fragrance-free detergent and a color catcher just to be safe. I also like to run the “Drum Clean” cycle before washing any quilts: better to be safe than sorry!
By hand: in a clean bathtub with cool/lukewarm water, I submerge the quilt in cold water, add the minimum amount of detergent, and gently agitate it (push it up and down) every 20 minutes over the course of an hour, before draining the water, then refill the tub, repeating the agitating process and draining until the water runs clear. Squeeze out as much water as possible. Rinse and repeat until the water is clear (no sudsy bubbles left behind!).
Dry
Some people dry their quilts on low heat (or air dry) in their machine. Since I don’t machine dry my jeans (or anything beyond towels to be honest), I can’t speak to this, so I’d suggest air drying your quilts. First, roll up your quilt in some dry towels and gently squeeze excess water out (I like to roll them up and gently press on them so I’m not tempted to wring them out). If I had a front lawn (or any yard), I’d dry my quilts on a sunny day outside, putting towels under the quilt and an old sheet on top. But, since I don’t have that option in my apartment, I make use of our pull out couch and place the washed quilt on top of a layer of towels.
Now that your quilt is nice and clean, it can go back into rotation or be safely stored away for future use.
How to Store
If you’d like to store it, you have a couple options. If you have a spare bed (I wish), you can use the bed to store all your quilts. Just lay them out and separate each with an old sheet. If you don’t have a spare bed, gently fold them (or ideally roll them!) and store them in cotton muslin bags. Make sure to take them out every so often to give them a little air before refolding them in a different way so they don’t get creased at the same points (at least every few months – rolling buys you a little more time here!). If you are folding them then every so often you’ll want to unfold the quilt and leave it flat on a spare bed (again, I wish) for about a week, before refolding and putting away.
Another great way to store them is to display them on a wall! I love to rotate my favorite throw quilts in our front hall: it’s like a traveling exhibition of my very own.