cleaning hand painted satin

Trazy

Does anybody have any ideas how to clean a 70 year old hand painted satin cushion please? It is stained as it wasnt properly stored. I'm terrified of spoiling it. Thank you

Broomstick

Hi Trazy,

Are you near a museum, historic house, or similar that has costumes or textiles on display? They will be in touch with textile conservation experts and someone might be able to give you a little bit of advice over the phone. When I've contacted museum departments people have always been really helpful. (However, I suspect that, depending on the damage, you will be told either to leave the cushion alone or to hand it over to a professional to sort out.)

The V&A museum in London has an introduction to cleaning historic textiles on their website: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/c/cleaning-textiles/ - may be a bit more over-careful than you need for your cushion but interesting none the less.

HTH

B x

meritaten

I would be terrified to tackle that! The most I would attempt would be to put the vacuum on its gentlest suction put some old tights over the nozzle and try to gently remove old dust. I wouldnt try anything damp as old dyes are not very stable and you could make the staining even worse.

Trazy

Thank you for your help, sounds like it may have to stay as it is

meritaten

Dont give up Trazy - its also amazing what a good shake and a few hours on the clothesline can achieve! It sounds like a family heirloom and should be preserved. or you could gift it to a museum which displays items from that era.