Help with cleaning and maintaining vintage quilts

Hello all,

We were cleaning out my grandmothers house after her passing we found quilts she had gotten from her mother. The notes on the quilts have them as 120-130 years old but sadly they were not always stored in the best way. We found water damage(we think), light fading (maybe) and just use grime at the edges. The notes with them warn of walnut hull dye used on some of the fabric.

We wanted to get them cleaned up(grandma didn’t always take the best care of them) and displayed but we don’t know where to start with them. I read the section on cleaning but the walnut stain scared us. I attached some photos of some of the full quilts and close ups of the wear and tear.

Thanks for any advice.
Katrina

 

We think she used cotton as the fabric and the notes on some of the quilts say the batting is homegrown cotton. About a third look to be machine sown but the rest are hand sown. They all looked like they were is actively used for decades.

I was looking through several online articles and I think I have found pretty much every variation of instructions for cleaning so I thought checking in with people who handle actually used garments might lead us to best ways to handle them to minimize degradation on some well loved quilts.

 

I clean my own quilts but VERY carefully. These with the 'walnut dye' would fall into that category as I wouldn't know how stable the dye against modern cleaners, even if the more gentle ones for vintage and antique fabrics. If there's a quilt shop in your area, I might run it over to get their assessment.