Vintage Christening Dress - The Washing

Thanks for all the wonderful advice and comments about this dress!

Everything I read on the internet seemed to say it was an okay thing to wash it, EXCEPT for

the one article that said washing vintage clothing can sometimes result in it dissolving.

Uh...did it really say DISSOLVING? 

As in, DISAPPEARING? Okay, that scared me!

I certainly did not want this washing to result in a only few threads left in my tub.

With a shaky hand and thumping heart, I took on the task of washing the dress

to remove the stuffy smell and any remaining weevil shells.

Since I had a huge bag of baking soda on hand and using it was among the highly recommended

methods on the internet for cleaning this at home (plus, Sharon said it was okay so it must be okay),

I decided this was how I was going to start the process of cleaning the dress.

I started by adding one quarter cup of baking soda to two cups of boiling water.

I stirred it until it dissolved...I loved watching it bubble and brew...then let it cool down.

Next, I gently laid the dress in my clean bathtub and slowly started filling the tub with lukewarm water.

I poured the dissolved baking soda mix into the running water to incorporate into the water in the tub.

I read that you just let the dress float up in the water allowing it to soak in the water on its own,

but after a few minutes of letting it float I gently pushed it into the water to totally cover it.

I left it to soak for one hour and came back to gently agitate it...do not wring it or lift it!

Water makes fabric heavy and lifting it can damage those delicate threads holding it all together.

 I let it soak another half hour and then drained off the baking soda water.

Once the water was drained I filled the tub with cool water, gently agitated the dress, 

and drained the water. I did this FIVE times to remove the baking soda mixture from the dress.

It didn't dissolve (whew!), but it still smelled a little musty.

 I definitely needed something to take away that yucky smell.

Oxyclean or BIZ was recommended on several internet sites to whiten and clean vintage clothing, but I 

didn't want to whiten the dress because I love, love, love the creamy color of it. Luckily, my sister had

some BIZ so I borrowed only a tablespoon and dissolved it like I did the baking soda. Once again I 

soaked and rinsed repeatedly just like I'd done with the baking soda. It was a long day and my back 

didn't appreciate all the bending over the tub, but it was worth it because it smelled so much better!

Once all the rinsing and rinsing and rinsing was done, and the tub was drained of all the water,

I rolled it into a towel without lifting it up (I didn't want to damage those delicate threads!) 

After gently pressing on the towel to help remove some of the water, I left it there for about a half hour.

Still being careful not to lift the wet dress or pull on it, I unrolled it and left it in the tub for an hour.

For the next several hours I turned the dress over onto a dry towel using the wet towel to support it.

Right before going to bed to ease my aching back, I placed a dry towel underneath and left it to dry.

TA DA!

No dissolved dress, no musty smell, no ripped seams!

It didn't even need to be ironed because it looks just fine like it is.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not a pro at this and do not claim that I knew what I was doing.

I was just lucky thanks to all the wonderful advice and research.

A Vintage Christening Gown

I spent the last few days at my mother-in-law's helping her clean-up a room in her house.

Among the "treasures" was this christening gown that was folded up in an old Ked's shoe box. 

Oh, my! I went crazy over it...really, I did!

It's about 43 inches long and was made my husband's gr-grandmother, Ingeborg Lokken, for her son's

christening around 1895. My mother-in-law thinks she wore it, too...we'll be looking for pictures!

It has a combination of machine and hand sewing throughout the dress and attached slip.

There's a bit of damage in some places, but considering it's been sitting in that 

shoe box for who knows how many years it's in pretty good shape.

These were my mother-in-law's shoes that were also in the box.

I'm planning on displaying it in a shadow box, but I'm doing a little research first.

Wash or don't wash?

Anybody know the answer to this?

If it's a "yes" to being okay to wash and you've done this before, how did you do it? 

I know it would be hand washed only, no dry cleaning or washing machine!

I'm not worried about whitening it or removing stains,

but it really needs to be freshened up (a few weevil shells were in the folds.)

So...advice anyone?

Another Quilt Bound...Yay!

I'm thinking 2012 must have been a harder year than I remember, because that's when I started LOTS of 

quilts but never finished them. This one was quilted way back in 2012 by Quilted Works and stuck in a

box with no binding. I'm not really crazy about it, but I do LOVE the quilting and the fabric. 

At least I learned to make some new blocks and I used some leftover pieces of a Moda Layer Cake. 

I only have one more quilt to bind and then I'm done with the quilts that only needed binding. Yay!

My next stash clean-up will include finishing partially made quilts.

After that, time to get rid of patterns that have never been used. There's lots of them!

A Date With Subzero Ice Cream

I had a quick date with my hubby that involved ice cream...my favorite kind of dessert!

This was no ordinary ice cream adventure, though.

It was made and frozen right before our eyes! So amazing!

It's a place called Sub Zero Ice Cream.

They pour cream, yogurt, or custard along with any other goodies you want into a silver bowl.

(Pics were taken with my phone, so sorry about the quality.)

They blast it with nitrogen (see their technical explanation below.)

This is what my final treat looked like. There's some peanut butter, caramel, and brownies in there.

It was delicious AND a fun experience (I'm easily entertained!)

In case you just HAVE to know...

The Sub Zero's explanation from their website on how it works:

"For those of us who haven’t been to school in a while, here is some chemistry 101.  Nitrogen is one of 118 known elements and because it evaporates at such low temperatures, it typically exists as a gas (in fact, it makes up about 78% of the Earth’s atmosphere). Therefore, in order for it to remain in a liquid state it must be kept at extremely cold temperatures.  Since liquid nitrogen boils at -321˚F, it freezes anything it touches. Sub Zero uses this molecular gastronomy (the merging of science and culinary arts) to transform milk and sugar instantly into ice cream. So why is liquid nitrogen-frozen ice cream so good? It’s all in the flash freeze. Since the ice cream is frozen so quickly (15 seconds or less), the milk molecules stay very small and the water particles don’t have time to grow into ice crystals. Without ice crystals, you get the smoothest, creamiest ice cream possible. Our rapid freezing process also helps preserve nutrients in the cream, yogurt, soy or rice milk!"

Just A Little Late With The Valentine Quilt

Okay, so I'm A LOT late for Valentine's Day...like over two years late!

I started this ruffly Valentine's quilt in 2012.

A friend quilted it with lovely hearts. I loved it!

All it needed was binding, but for unknown reasons it disappeared into a box for over two years.

(There's several more in that box that ONLY need binding...I'm slowly making my way through them.)

The problem with waiting that long is that the matching fabric to make the binding had disappeared.

Luckily, I was able to use some Riley Blake black polka dot for the binding. Whew!

Let the binding begin...OR NOT.

I had to stop in the middle of sewing the binding on because we got hit with a huge thunderstorm.

It just poured buckets of rain and the thunder went on forever!

A little flash flooding went on, too, thanks to almost an inch of rain in a really short time.

A couple hours later the binding was on and I was off to take pics with the hubby.

Luckily, there was very little rain and the lightening was off in the distance.

The back was fun to make, too.

 

I love this fabric!

 I'm all done with my See You In September projects (my day is September 9th)

and I can't wait to see what everyone else has been busy creating all summer.

Then there's the Rush Hour Blog Hop...I'm so excited to host this one!

Then...oh boy...Black Cat Crossing!

A Monkey Boy Label And Quilt

I took the oldest Monkey Boy shopping to pick out fabric for his own quilt. 

I had so much fun and loved every minute of it!

He's very creative and put his full attention into what fabric he wanted.
We walked around Quiltique looking at the quilts on the wall to get ideas for a design.

I drew a quick picture on the back of a receipt to show him blocks, borders, and binding

so he could pick out the fabrics for each portion of the quilt.
It was no surprise that he zoomed in on fabrics in reds and blacks since he loves those colors.

I think he was pretty excited about it, too!

The red and black fabric is Fowl Play by Westminster and the

crazy white and black fabric is Night and Day by Robert Kaufman.
The solids to go with it are by Robert Kaufman...I love that Kona!

He drew a design for a label so I can embroider it.

The fabrics he chose in his favorite colors would be perfect for the Rush Hour blog hop!

Pets On Quilts Winner

Brandy from Pampered Pettit!

She wins the little bundle of fabric Creepy Bunny is holding.

(Don't worry Brandy, Creepy Bunny will stay with me.)

Thanks to everyone for visiting during the show and leaving such sweet comments about your pets.

Voting is going on over at Lilypad Quilting right now, but if you haven't checked out all the amazing pet related projects you should go NOW to HERE. There are lots of beautiful animals to see.

This was my quilt that was pet related and the post about it is HERE.

Bruster thanks you for visiting my blog during the Pets on Quilts Show, too.

There Was A Little Hummingbird

I've been cleaning out my fabric stash and came across a quilt that I'd never finished

(I actually found quite a few I haven't finished...crazy!)
I sent this one to the quilters in April 2012, picked it up a few weeks later,
and then it went into the dreaded Not Lost But Forgotten Box.

Yesterday I pulled it from the Not Lost But Forgotten Box and realized it only needed to have the
binding attached. Seriously...that was all it needed? The binding is on now!

The fabric is by Laurel Burch.
It sparkles and shines...I love her fabric!

I love all the swirls in the quilting.

The back.


For some reason I hadn't noticed before that there were hummingbirds in the fabric.
Whenever I see a hummingbird I always think of Bryce, who left us too soon and is missed by many.

There was a little hummingbird that landed on the fingers of an angel.

He stayed a while and then left to do other hummingbird things.

Sadly, the angel left, too.
Sometimes that's just what angels have to do, even though we want them to stay.

"Well I have to say I am a blessed soul who gets a hummingbird to land on their hand...

that's once in a life time...and who gets a pic...I guess I'm that guy...what a blessing." ~Bryce