A nasty stain is removed, repairs made and an Edwardian nightgown is wearable once again

Описание: This weeks “Martha’s Collection “ feature is an Edwardian nightgown that I estimate to be from the 1900’s. This was part of a large collection that was donated to me by Martha’s family and i will feature an item each week. Ruth A. Lusk, the original owner’s name, is written inside on a seam allowance. Research into her name brought me to a 1901 online college class book for Smith College that has an image of Ruth. I continued scrolling through and also found that she was in the play “Taming of the shrew” that year at Smith (going further down the rabbit hole, I learned that faculty did not want that play to be performed) How wonderful to see a face associated with the garment! As found it had some holes in it, general yellowing/ oxidation and a nasty stain. Assuming the stain was organic in nature, I used an enzymatic spray to pretreat the stain before soaking and the stain is gone with just a faint bit of blue remaining. (Ink? Bluing?) Some mysterious bright yellow stains appeared that I did not see when I started, and I was not able to remove those despite efforts ( I did not use chlorine bleach as I feel that is too harsh ) To remedy the holes, lace medallions were hand stitched in place and I’m happy with how that turned out. The nightgown is clean and wearable ( with gentle vintage care- not for sleeping in) once again approximately 120 years later. ❤️ #diy #edwardian #vintageclothescleaning