Preserving Clothing and Textiles

Hi all:
I just this evening discovered in my parents home (they are dead and I am executor) a box of vintage items. Knitted baby clothes, a small wool blanket, a wool knitted mitten worn by my grandmother, baby shoes, the oldest shoes are leather and are still very soft and pliable. My old fur muff. A doll quilt that belonged to my great grandmother (I calculate that it is about 120 years old!!!), and most everything was in plastic bags.

A couple of the bags totally disengrated as I opened them. My mother had good identification of to whom the items belonged, some with dates. NOW my problem is what do I do to keep them in as good a condition as possible???

I seem to remember from a class at Costume College that they should be stored in acid-free tissue paper, do I remember correctly? If so, where do I get acid-free tissue paper? I need to do something quickly as this is a smoking house and I know that smoke is not good for such items. How do I seal them away from further damage??? I hope someone out there on this list can help.

Thanks in advance. Jean Palmer, SWCG, AZ

Betsy Delaney
Light Impressions (Rochester, NY) offers a wide variety of acid-free archiving materials, including photo albums, tissue paper, boxes and so on.

http://www.lightimpressionsdirect.com/

Lisa Deutsch Harrigan
They sound wonderful!

Check your local quality stationary store. Acid Free stuff is becoming more popular. Also check out the comic book store. They have a lot of Acid Free bags to store comics in that should work nicely for the smaller items.

Note - The good stuff isn't cheap. But what you have is priceless.

Alison Kondo
Hi Jean,
From what I learned in the museum science classes I took, acid free tissue in an acid free box is the way to go.

However, if you need a short term solution, it was recommended to get very cheap unbleached cotton muslin, wash it several times to get the sizing out and wrap the garments in it. Hope this helps.

If you have any further information to share about this topic, please e-mail Carole Parker for inclusion.