In the last article, we looked at what to do when marking happens and the way to treat oil and grease based stains.

Continuing on from there we will now look at the next most typical type of stain that happens on quilts:

Protein Stains

Believe it or not, this is a significant one one. Many readers are interested to find out just how many protein based stains there may be. Stuff like mustard, blood, fruit juice, mud, vomit, wine, coffee, chocolate and coca are all protein based stains.

The rough guide is, if it came from a human or something humans eat, probabilities are its a protein stain.

The best way to remove a protein stain is to get rid of as much of it as practicable by blotting with cloth or paper towels to remove excess fluids or materials. Then mix up some cold water and salt using the ratio of 1 tsp of salt to 1 pint of water.

I cannot stress the importance of cold water enough. Do not use hot water! Hot water will react with the protein and lock in the stain.

For coffee or tea, use borax and water or if you have it on hand, Club Soda works a treat too , this one really helped me when I spilled coffee on my favouirte patchwork quilt. For wine and fruit juices, you’ll need an ammonia based cleaner to remove all the marking.

If the stain doesn’t come out immediately, you could need to soak the affected area for one or two hours before placing it a jumbled bag. There are such a lot of different types of chemicals and each one has its own way of treating it. The better news is that most chemicals will have cleaning directions on the back of the packaging advising how to deal with it if staining occurs, so consult the packets.

Permanent Marks

There are a few things which cannot be removed. Things like scorch or burn marks won’t wash out as these are real changes in the fibre composition itself, not the colouring.

Tar and asphalt are also not likely to get out as this tends to lock into the fibres themselves and cannot be melted or scrubbed out.

Hopefully this guide has given you a few good ideas and helps you get out any exasperating or troublesome stains.

To get some more great tips about the best way to make a patchwork quilt, check out Jane Green’s how to make a patchwork quilt website now!

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