Linen Restoration Part 3: Restoring things with color

I have many things that are embroidered by my grandmother. All of which had horrible stains.

These all came out with out compromising any of the colors. Yay!

One stain out of all the stains I had did not come out. I threw it back into the  next batch.

Pretty white right? It was really obvious when I put it up to ones which had not been treated yet. The difference is night and day.

 

This one I was nervous b/c it had a lot of stains and holes.

Basically everything worked well. But one tablecloth which then wound up with more color then when I started.

So all in all I am happy with what all turned out. Everything got lighter and stains removed. All but one! Not bad! And look how great things look with them on my table. I love this tablecloth.

Cheers
Lauren

Linen Restoration Part 2: Knit sweater and cotton

Here is party 2 of the restoration process I undertook. Now this was really delicate items in my hope chest. This lace thing (which had a hole

 

And a knit sweater/shawl item.

 

Both were super yellow and had brown spots But the restoration did the trick. Look at how white the knit sweater is!!

 

Both items turned out really well and the stains are gone. Very happy. Now on Friday I am going to try things with color. I am sort of nervous about it. Come back Friday!

 

Cheers,

Lauren

Iron Craft- Way back in time machine: Part 1 of Restoring Vintage linens

After contemplating what I was going to do for the Iron Craft- way back when machine. So something vintage. My time is limited so sewing a vintage dress (which I wanted to really bad just life has a way of getting in the way of things!). So I decided to use this opportunity to begin one of my projects where I restored my grandmother's antique linens.

If you don't know both sides of my family are off the boat. We don't have much heirlooms or antiques. We all mostly just had stuff to live. Nothing fancy. What I do have left is my grandmother's linens. She had table runners, table cloths, napkins, doilies, and these lace things.

The problem is many of my items have stains and are yellowed. Many of the antique linens yellow. Here it is up next to a white piece of paper. It is pretty yellow And we had parts which were almost brown on the edge.

After doing some research last year I found that my best option was using restoration. Which is meant for antique linens. I didn't want to take my chances so I opted for this option. The best buying option is thru Amazon, btw....

Basically the procedure is as follows... pre-soak for 20 mins. and wow.... the water was dirty!!!

Already looking better but you can still see the yellow. no worries on to the next step

Next set up another bath, warm water (2 gallons) and 6 scoops of the restoration. Now Let it sit for 6-8 hours. Yes really!! I occasionally agitated it with my hands every so often. Then I rinsed it with water several times. I got out the excess water by putting it in between a towel. And then I hung them up to dry. Wow they look great!

They look amazing. I could not get myself to craft them into something else. They turned out too pretty and restored. I have a few more of my projects I am going to work on restoring to their beauty. It works! Now to restore more of them! Yay! I will totally get to this New Years Resolution. I just may need more restoration powder.

xoxoxo,
Lauren