Antiques in Cadiz, KY

Fun on the 4th

We had company over the 4th of July weekend -- Roger and Joy Hennen. We first met them in Berlin, Germany, about 20 years ago. They now live in Oklahoma, but they occasionally pass through Kentucky on their way home from visiting Roger's family in West Virginia.

On the 4th, we visited the antique shops on Main Street in Cadiz, KY. Roger was looking for old license plates, and he found quite a few that he liked.

Cadiz has at least five antique stores on Main Street and some of them have several floors. We breezed through them in less than three hours, but it wouldn't have been difficult to spend more time.

I saw a sign in one of the stores that said something like "If you want it, buy it! It may not be here tomorrow." Maybe I should have done that. I saw a copy of the Family History Book, Christian County, Kentucky, the second volume of the most recent Christian County history books.  It had a price tag of $60. I would like to have it but I was reluctant to pay that price. 

I did buy a couple of interesting old books and a sturdy ice cream scoop. Together, they added up to about $10. I've been surviving without the family histories book for quite a while, and I'll continue living without it, I guess.

Roger and Joy left early this morning, so the holiday is over and life is mostly back to normal. Back to work, tomorrow.

Might Be a Threshing Machine?

I think this old piece of farm equipment might be a small threshing machine. If you know for sure what it is, please tell me!

One clue is the pulleys on the sides. I believe the long belts that powered the machine were attached there. Threshing machines always had very long belts between the machine and the engine. The engine was set up a safe distance away from the chaff and straw debris to reduce the danger of fire.

At first glance, it seems strange that the chute for feeding the sheaves of grain into the machine (at right) is so far from the ground. However, the grain was hauled to the machine on wagons and pitched into the threshing machine from the wagon bed -- not from the ground.

My theory is that the grain came out a spout on the opposite side of the machine (not visible in the photo) and the upward-pointing metal chute at the bottom is where the straw and chaff were blown out. I could be completely wrong!

The wheels on a threshing machine allowed it to be pulled between fields. Some threshing machines were on skids instead of wheels.

My mother had a threshing story from when she was a little girl on the farm at Gordon, Nebraska, in the 1920s. Her mother, my Grandma Violet, had to cook a big noon meal for a crew of 15 or 20 men. It was a hot day, and the house was extra hot from Grandma Violet's morning of cooking and baking.

Little Doris decided she'd be a lot cooler without her clothing. The men were due to come in for dinner at any moment, when Grandma Violet saw what my mom wasn't wearing. She was not amused. Encouraged by a swat on her backside, my mother put her clothes right back on again.

Old Adding Machine Stirs Memories

All In The Family... Another Trip Down Memory Lane... History and Old Stuff...

Isaac and I traveled a few miles of the Kentucky 400-Mile Sale on Saturday. We bought a few things, including this old Burroughs adding machine. Isaac paid a dollar for it.

The wall plug is missing, so we don't know yet if the machine works. No matter. Isaac likes its old-time appearance. He calls it a "primitive."

Isaac is intrigued by the mechanics. He likes to push down lots of buttons and watch them pop back up when he presses the "E" (at lower right.)

"Better not do that," I warned. "The buttons might jam." I know this from my own experience of playing with a similar adding machine.

I was about 7 years old at the time. It was winter, and my mother was doing the bookkeeping and income tax. She decided to rent an adding machine for a few days, knowing that she'd sleep better if she was sure the numbers were correct.

Mama set up the adding machine on her library table. When I finally got a chance to look at it closely, I decided to see how it worked. You already know what happened next. I pushed keys and more keys until the machine was jammed. I decided to exit quietly and maintain a low profile.

Later, from my bedroom, I heard my parents talking. They had discovered the jammed adding machine, and they were discussing who had done it. They agreed that it had to be me.

Very soon, my dad came to question me about it. He thanked me for my honesty when I confessed. He told me that adding machines were expensive and reminded me that the machine didn't even belong to us. Then he spanked me.

I felt a great burden of guilt, shame and humiliation for what I had done. The story ends happily, though. My dad took the adding machine apart and fixed it, my mother got the income taxes done, and the adding machine was returned in good working order.

I don't think my parents would have ever mentioned that adding machine incident again if I hadn't melted Mama's funny little plastic adding machine the next year.

She had bought it to help figure the income tax. To enter a number, you set a sliding tab to a value between 0 and 9 for each digit. Then you pushed a button for the operation (add or subtract) and cranked the handle to enter the number and print it on a tape. (If I remember right!)

One day my brother and I were alone in the house when we got home from school. I set the adding machine down on the heating stove in the living room when I got done playing with it.

By the time my mother came home and found it, the stove had turned itself on and off a few times. The bottom of the adding machine had a new shape, and the little tabs didn't slide anymore.

I don't remember getting spanked that time. I do remember the fire glinting in my mother's eyes and the smoke boiling out of her ears as she warned me to never, ever, touch another of her adding machines and stay away from the typewriter, too!

How did she know that, I wonder?!

Technorati tags: vintage electronics, primitive electronics,old adding machine, antique office machines, Burroughs adding machine

Amazing Antiques

Cadiz, KY's antique shops

Cadiz, KY Main Street

Antiques, collectibles, and junk

When my brother Dwight was here last weekend, we did some sightseeing, including a visit to Cadiz, KY. Cadiz is the county seat of Trigg County, just west of Christian County where I live.

Cadiz was a great place to take Dwight because he and I enjoy antique stores, second-hand shops, flea markets, pawnshops, etc. (My sister likes them too. I don't know if it's our genes or our upbringing.)

Cadiz has at least half a dozen antique stores on Main Street in the old store buildings. Many tourists pass through Cadiz because it is near the Land Between the Lakes, and that extra traffic helps support the antique business, I imagine.

Collectible soda bottles

Paint-by-number, nicely done

We spent several hours wandering through an amazing assortment of stuff -- old furniture, dishes, books, clothing, tools, knickknacks, gadgets, everything you can imagine, and more. Several of the stores in Cadiz have three floors that extend across adjoining buildings.

I note that antique stores are, more and more, a museum of my time, as well as times before me. Things from not-so-long-ago --like the soda bottles pictured above -- are displayed right along with the true antiques.

I think the Mountain Dew bottles in the photo might be from the 1980's. They don't have the picture of the hillbilly which was on earlier bottles. Also, the early Mountain Dew bottles were smaller.

My brother bought a pocket knife at one of the stores and I bought an old book and a few postcards. All that entertainment didn't cost us much.

My new old book is a world geography from 1920. I'll probably be posting a few things from it.

Old "Log Cabin" quilt

This quilt pattern probably has a name, but I don't know it.

I remember in the mid-1960s, my dad brought home a 6-pack of Mountain Dew in bottles from Iowa. We all liked it, but it wasn't sold in Nebraska.

Technorati tags: antiques, antique stores, collectibles, Mountain Dew, Cadiz KY, Cadiz Kentucky

The Flower Fairies of Cicely Mary Barker

History and Old Stuff...

Sometimes I see an old-time illustration and it stirs a vague memory. I had one of those deja vu moments a few days ago when I was searching for an image of green ash blossoms to compare with the photo I had just taken.

Along with images of tree leaves, blossoms, twigs and buds, two images of beautiful little fairies appeared in the search results -- the Mountain Ash fairy and the Elm fairy. I can't tell you where or when I'd seen such fairies before, but I thought, "Oh, I remember them!" and it warmed my heart to see them again.

Intrigued, I followed the link and found a number of similar fairy illustrations listed on an eBay page. I was in a hurry but I wanted to know more, so I bookmarked the page. Today, I went back to enjoy the images and to find out more about the artist.

They are the work of Cicely Mary Barker, an English illustrator who lived from 1895 to 1973. She painted dozens of Flower Fairies. Some were part of a Flower Fairy alphabet. Others were Flower Fairies of the garden, of the forest, and of spring, summer, and fall.

I would love to put a Flower Fairy image here for you to enjoy but the art is still under copyright. You can see a good group of the Flower Fairies at Julie's Antique Prints, at Flower Fairies Pictures or at Prints With a Past.

The paintings have an air of innocent imagination and sweetness about them. Each fairy has a child's face and its wings and costume mirror and complement the flower that the fairy tends. The flowers are painted with careful attention to botanical detail.

When I read about Cicely Mary Barker, I learned that she had epilepsy as a child, so her parents did not send her to school. She studied at home with governesses. When she was 15, her father showed some samples of her paintings to a publisher, and he bought them and produced a series of note cards from them. That was the beginning of her professional art career.

After her father died, Barker helped support the family by selling illustrations and poetry to magazines. Fairies were a fad at the time, partly because Queen Mary was fond of sending fairy postcards, and so Barker began painting fairies and eventually published eight volumes of Flower Fairies. Perhaps I saw one of these books somewhere, sometime.

The models for the fairies were children wearing costumes that Barker designed and sewed. Each costume matched the color and the mood of the flower it complemented. As Barker painted, she had the fairy model hold a specimen of the flower so she could be sure of the flower's details. In each of the finished paintings, the fairy is the same size as the flower.

Barker's sister ran a kindergarten in the family home, so children were always nearby to serve as models, and Barker heard their little voices and their footsteps as she painted.

Barker also produced a lot of Christian art over the years. She donated art and designs to Christian mission and charity groups and created art for churches as well. However, she is most remembered for her Flower Fairies.

My daughter says when she has children, she's going to use bright primary colors in their bedrooms, but in their room at Grandma's house they may have Flower Fairies on the walls.



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A Beautiful Handmade Quilt

Story of an heirloom quilt

Carolyn Hall of Bassett, Nebraska, sent the photo of the beautiful quilt above, and I asked if I could post it for everyone to enjoy. She graciously agreed and wrote a few words of explanation about the quilt's history:

The quilt was made by my cousin Neva Armour in MI. When she died it was left to her niece, Sharon Katz Gobel in KY. So the only relation it has to Rock County is me. You may put it on your blog as an example of a completely hand done quilt originally started in the 1930's and finished in 2006-7 by the Busy Fingers quilting group of the Bassett United Methodist Church (Leona Spann, age 93, Lois Bennett, age 87 and Carolyn Hall, age 68). The cat is a barn cat from Cherry county. She must be part Siamese to get the seal brown color.

I sized the photo down to post it here, but take a closer look in the image below. I am awed at the many, many little pieces of cloth, the hours of work, and the thousands of stitches in this quilt. The quilters loved what they were doing and their joy in their skill just shines here.

The story that goes with it makes it even more special. How nice that the quilt was finally completed!

A quilt like this has a value that is far beyond money.





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quilting

The End of a Log House

Another Trip Down Memory Lane... Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

When we bought our small country acreage, there was an old log house in the yard. The log house (with an added wing) was the farmhouse before the house that we currently live in was built. For those who may be wondering, this log house was built by a Harned, but I don't know the first name.

Today, I came across a couple photos taken about the first of October in 1991 that show the log house. We had been here for about a month when the photos were taken. The photo above looks east from our house. A lot of old metal and trash was piled around the yard then, and some of it is visible beside the little white shed at right.

The old log house, or "log room" as the former owners called it, was full of junk also. There were cans and bags of unidentified powders, rusty cans of dried up paint, stacks of old newspapers, boxes of chipped and broken kitchen dishes, old boards with rusty nails, piles of rags and old rugs, broken windows, and so on.

Of course, we found a few interesting things in it as well. Old tools were piled in one corner, including some antique picks and axes with handmade handles. One old box yielded some vintage milk bottles and aqua-colored canning jars. On a nail in the wall, we found clothes hangers made of curved tree branches with wires bent around them. We also saved a few old wooden crates, an odd-sized handmade wooden door, and an ornate headboard.

If you look closely at the photo, you'll see that a chimney is standing out in the yard near the log house. It was once on the outer wall of an addition to the original house. The original house had a big fireplace on the eastern wall, opposite the door that's visible in the photo.

The whole house was covered with wood siding at one time and painted white, and thus some of the older neighbors still reminisce about the "white house" on this place. This may have been done at the time the addition was added to the north side of the cabin.

When the previous owner of the property built a new house in the early 1960's, he tore off the addition on the old house and left just the "log room" standing. By the time we moved here, the plank floor of the log house was rotten in places and the northwest corner was sagging dangerously due to weather-related deterioration of the logs. The second floor of the house had an uncomfortable slant to the northwest.

The next spring, a great-great grandson of the log house's builder approached us. He wanted to tear down the house and salvage the logs. He had recently torn down a log house built by another ancestor, and he intended to use the good logs from the two houses to add a log room to an old house he was renovating. (This fellow is a carpenter by trade as well as being a good general handyman, as many country folk are.)

We accepted his offer on the condition that he not only remove the house, but really clean up the whole area and haul off all the junk. I also stipulated that I would like to keep the stones from the chimneys that were small enough for me to lift.

So the log house and its chimneys were torn down and hauled a mile across the field to the old homesite that the gr-gr-grandson was rebuilding and restoring. Over the next couple years, he did indeed add a log room to the old house. He did a remarkable job of craftsmanship and soon had a comfortable, attractive, rustic home. We could see it plainly across the field, between us and Pilot Rock.

This story ends sadly. One Sunday morning as we got in the car to drive to church, we looked across the field and saw flames shooting as high as the treetops from this newly rebuilt house. An electrical problem (possibly caused by a squirrel chewing off the insulation on the wires) caused a fire in the attic. They tried to put it out themselves before finally calling the volunteer fire department. Then the first fire truck got stuck in the very rough muddy road leading to the home and blocked the way for all who came to help. Needless to say, the house burned to the ground.

Fortunately, everyone escaped without injury and they were able to salvage a few things from the home before the fire grew too dangerous. If there is a moral to the story, it would be to call the fire department right away if you have a fire, and even more importantly, to have a good enough road to your house that the fire truck can navigate it. Otherwise, you're on your own.


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log house

What do you think? Comments are welcome!

Foiling the Antique Hunters

Another Trip Down Memory Lane... Life in Christian County, Kentucky... And What I Think About It...

Lately, I seem to have trouble getting my thoughts together to write anything. Here's something from my archives, written about seven or eight years ago, when I was working at the little country store just a mile from home.

And if this describes you -- well, now you know what I think.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Business was slow at the little country store yesterday afternoon. I don't suppose I'd had a customer for an hour or so when the gray Mercedes pulled up and a man and a woman came inside. They were wearing the appropriate Ralph Lauren clothing for a day in the country. They paid for soft drinks with a fifty peeled off a stack of bills, and looked around the store with interest.

"Do you have any old things here you'd like to sell?" The lady was running an exquisitely manicured finger along the back of the ancient church pew where our regulars sit to eat sandwiches and tell stories. Her eyes wandered to the vintage Coca Cola thermometer hanging by the sink at the back of the store.

"No, ma'am," I said. "Everything in here belongs to the family." (Not my family, but The Family who has owned the store for 55 years or more and until recently, ran the business.)

"Well, do you know of anyone who has some old furniture ruining in their barn? Or maybe you know an old person who'd have some things to sell?"

"No, I sure don't," I said. "Sorry..."

"We're spending a few days here visiting," the lady said. "We like to look for antiques everywhere we go."

"Everybody around here is pretty antique-aware. I don't know anybody who'd sell a thing," I said firmly.

"Well, thank you," she said. "You've got a real nice little store here."

They donned their sunglasses and drove away, leaving me a little surprised at the degree of antagonism I'd felt when they started asking about buying the old things in my neighborhood.

Some might say that if my neighbors did have some old handmade pieces of furniture rotting in their barn, it would be better for a Mercedes-driving stranger to have them than for them to be ruined. But I'd have felt like an accessory to a crime if these strangers had paid little-of-nothing for something that should be a family treasure, even if the family hasn't realized it yet.

It was obvious that the antique hunters were from a different world. Their flannel shirts, blue jeans, barn jackets, and oversized hiking boots hadn't seen any honest wear, and their car probably cost nearly as much as my house. They might have looked just right in their country costumes at a resort or lodge somewhere, but they didn't belong at our shabby, dusty little country store with the outhouse behind it.

Every town around here has antique stores in it. Those antique hunters didn't want to shop. They came to the country because they wanted to steal, and that's what irritated me. It gave me an undeniable pleasure to refuse my help.

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rednecks
rural life

Old Linens

Looking through some fabric treasures

Keely borrowed some Bolivian things from me a few weeks ago so she could teach a lesson about Bolivia at the daycare where she's working this summer. The school-age children were studying various countries that (Keely said) they are unlikely to study in much depth at school.

She brought the box back while my brother was visiting, and it's been sitting in the living room ever since. I finally opened it up yesterday afternoon and packed its contents back into the several chests where they ordinarily live with mothballs. Most of the Bolivian wovens are wool and wool blends.

Since I had the cedar chest open, I refolded all the old linens in it. The idea is to fold them differently so the previous fold lines get some relief. Refolding helps prevent weakening and eventual breaking of the fibers at the fold as well as permanent fold lines.

It's supposed to be better to roll old linens than to fold them, but that's not practical with tablecloths, quilts, and other large pieces. I do have some smaller linens rolled --dresser cloths, pillowcases, etc.

Cardboard is verboten for serious archiving, but I did use a cardboard gift wrap tube at the center of the roll. I covered it with several wraps of acid-free paper so the cloth is not in direct contact with the cardboard. I hope that's good enough.

Cedar chests aren't supposed to be too good for old linens either, so I have an old sheet folded in several layers between the wood and the cloth. I really don't have any other place to store these things.

My mother had a lot of old embroidered linens and I inherited a share of those. Some of them were made by her mother, my Grandma Violet Eaton Sees who died of pneumonia when my mother was eight. I think other pieces of handwork were not done by Violet, but were received as wedding gifts, etc. They were packed away when Grandpa Harry Sees married Grandma Barb (Barbara Weber) and were eventually given to my mother.

Some of the linens aren't family heirlooms at all -- at least, not from our family. My mother had a soft spot for old embroidered linens and she bought little pieces at thrift shops and estate sales because she hated to see them unappreciated.

To be honest, I have that same affection for handwork and I've rescued some pieces myself. I know which ones I've collected. I recognize from my childhood some of the pieces my mother had, but there are others that I'm not sure if she inherited or collected.

Many of the pieces have waterspots, stains, worn places, and even little tears. Most of the best of them have small blemishes. I'm sure they have no significant monetary value.

The decorators and crafters who write articles in magazines would make throw pillows from the best parts of some of these old cloths and throw away the scraps. Or they'd cut them up and piece a fancy bedspread from the embroidered parts.

I couldn't do that. No, I have to keep preserving them as they are as best I can, for two reasons:
1) Most of them belonged to my mother.
2) No one does beautiful handwork like that anymore.

I kept out a few pieces to use -- a scarf for the top of the piano, another little cloth for the top of the china cabinet, and a few little doilies to set lamps, etc. on. They're blemished in places, but it doesn't matter. I handwashed a few pieces I had out already and I'll put them back into the cedar chest today.

Technorati tags: heirlooms, embroidery, linens, needlework

Seen at the Cumberland Gap

Life in The Upper South...

Today has gone a little better. We got about 2/3 of the yard mowed. (We mow about 2 acres counting what we mow along the road.) I did several loads of laundry, and Isaac helped me get the camping gear put away. There's still plenty to do, but it doesn't look quite as hopeless.

These are the last of the photos from our very short camping trip. One day, we drove over to the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park where Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee meet. It was interesting to drive through the Cumberland Gap tunnel.

The weather was so hot that all the ranger-led park tours were cancelled for the day! The road to the Pinnacle overlook is closed for construction/repair, so we couldn't go there either. We still could have hiked through the Gap on our own, but it didn't sound like that much fun at high noon during a heat wave. So we found some other sights to see.

View from the deck at Cumberland Gap National Historic Park Visitor's Center

Coneflowers at Visitor's Center entrance

Isaac attempts a military pose at Visitor's Center

A road within the park

Densely shaded picnic & camping area of the park

Cumberland Gap, TN. The actual Gap is at right in the photo.

Old business district in Middlesboro, KY

Another old building in Middlesboro

The Arthur-Middlesboro Museum was built in 1890 as the office of the American Association

Alexander Arthur was the founder of Middlesboro and an important person in area mining history.

This kitty belongs to the museum.

Detail on an antique chair at the Arthur Museum

"Sailing Ship" quilt at the Arthur Museum

All of Highway 186 south of Middlesboro is like this, mile after mile.

Related sites:

Cumberland Gap National Historical Park
Old US 25E: Crossing the Cumberland Gap.
Cumberland Gap Tunnel

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Cumberland Gap
Middlesboro, Kentucky

Found Inside Old Books

History and Old Stuff...

Here are a few of the things I've found tucked into the pages of old books.

• A prayer for people who are discouraged
• A little lock of hair tied with thread
• A Beatles bubble gum trading card
• A handwritten recipe for salt-rising bread
• Old photo of children sitting on the back of a large bull or ox
• Pressed maple and oak leaves
• Old clipping about common backyard birds of Kentucky
  
• List of games to play at a party
• Old clipping about best lawn grasses
• A wedding napkin from June of 1962
  
• Old Sunday School paper with a picture of the Good Shepherd
  
• Old picture postcard of Amsterdam
  

I usually just leave these things in the books I found them in. I did take the lock of hair out and throw it away because it was discoloring the pages. I've actually found quite a few clippings, but I don't remember the precise subjects of them all right now.

Related post:
A Prayer For Today

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found

Aunt Mary's Antiques

New use for historic building in Hopkinsville, KY

Aunt Mary's Antiques at the corner of 7th and Virginia

This century-old building in downtown Hopkinsville was purchased by James and Mary Pennington a few years ago. They moved their antique business here from the north edge of Hopkinsville. They wanted a more prominent location; their previous store had been a bit hard to find.

It's an interesting store to visit. Besides the main floor, there are several rooms upstairs and a basement with more rooms. Mr. Pennington has retired from commercial carpentry and during his spare time at the store he makes furniture which is also offered for sale. I sometimes see him working in an area of the basement that has a door that opens to the sidewalk.

Mr. Pennington has done work on the inside and outside on the building, and it's looking good. I am sure that getting all those rooms repaired, painted, filled and arranged was a tremendous job.

When we first moved here in the early 1990's, we hired Mr. Pennington to build our well house, and a good little well house it has been.

Music that Might Have Been Lost

Unique recordings preserved

A Manhattan record label and a Minnesota distributor/publisher of spoken word audio, including books and radio programs, are among the companies that have expressed interest in a rare collection of Jewish liturgical recordings made in the 1950s, much to the relief of Lionel Ziprin, who has been trying to get the recordings out in the world for some 50 years. The records were part of a set of 15 LPs that Ziprin's grandfather, Rabbi Nuftali Zvi Margolies Abulafia, recorded in a Lower East Side yeshiva over a period of two years with renowned ethnomusicologist Harry Smith.

I don't want to get too elated,' 81-year-old Ziprin said of his interest in the recordings. 'I'm too weak for that.'"

Quoted from "A Beatnik Finds Treasure In His Grandfather's Beats" by Jon Kalish, published in Forward Newspaper Online, January 27, 2006.

It is amazing how well sound can be preserved on records (much better than on tape!) Here is a somewhat related true story.

Bob Wills, the King of Western Swing, during the mid-1940's did a radio show for the Tiffany Music Company. Bob and his band recorded over 370 songs on a set of records. The plan was that radio stations would be provided with the discs and a script for each week. The station's disc jockey would follow the script, reading his part and playing certain songs.

Unfortunately, the Tiffany Music Company dissolved before the radio show really got going, and the partner who had the most money invested took the masters, transcriptions, documents, and everything else related to the Tiffany Music Company and kept them in his basement for 35 years. (He didn't throw them away -- he realized their historic significance.)

After the gentleman passed away, his heirs released the music and it is considered to be a remarkable archive of Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys at their best.

Flickr image by Lady DragonflyCC

How to Clean an Old Quilt

Washing vintage fabrics

I came across a good article about cleaning an old quilt. Sara Bogle, Fulton County (KY) Family and Consumer Sciences agent, advises that old quilts can be cleaned by vacuuming. Wrap the nozzle of the vaccuum in fiberglass window screen to prevent the quilt fabric being sucked into the nozzle.

Bogle says that wet cleaning can damage old fabrics, but if you decide to chance it, vacuum the quilt first on both sides. The next steps:

Place the quilt completely flat, using a fiberglass screen for support. Mix a detergent solution (not soap) of 1/2 ounce liquid detergent to each gallon of water. Distilled, filtered or deionized water at 70 degrees Fahrenheit is recommended, especially for the final rinse.

Submerge the quilt for no more than one hour. Use a sponge, moving it away from the center of the quilt to the outer edges. Rinse at least four times or until there is no remaining detergent. Litmus paper can be used to test the rinse water. A seven on the pH scale indicates all detergent is removed.

Stretch the quilt on a flat surface and shape it to the original size. Don’t ring [sic] out the water; press gently. Do not iron the quilt.

Quoted from: "Old Quilts Need Special Care", The Ledger Independent, Maysville, KY, by Debra B. Cotterill, Family and Consumer Sciences Agent for Mason County, Tuesday, January 24, 2006 8:58 PM EST

I appreciate good information like this from the Extension Service. This hand washing technique could be applied to any heirloom fabric.