Friday, May 6, 2011

Cleaning Task: Han-Eri

With a Nagajuban I've now re-sewn into a hanjuban (this one) came a lovely silk Han-Eri. It has leaves weaved in the fabric, but it's stained and yellowed in some spots, so it won't be wearable like this (T.T)

Big Problem: Silk cannot be cleaned to easily, and yellowing is almost impossible to remove. And if you managed to remove it, then you probably "removed" the whole fabric.

I still tried to make the stains at least a little lighter, so I gave it a nice lukewarm bath in our sink. A small amount of wool and silk soap and some very careful scrubbing helped with the job.
Another try was soaking it into milk and let it sit until the milk became bad. (I read somewhere this makes silk white again) But the stupid milk they sell since recently won't get bad the classical way anymore. It's the "stays fresh forever" type -.-, which won't get bad for weeks and if it does it won't clump (this is great, 'cause you'll notice when it's too late and you had a taste of it XP). Such it didn't work out well at all and took almost a week.
If you want to try that milk trick, make sure you get real "fresh" milk.

As you can see the result is not overwhelming, the stain got lighter, the yellow spots, too.
My plan is to dye it, probably in orange, red or brown so the stain will vanish within the colour.
I did this to another plain Han-Eri too. It wasn't that badly stained, but like the leave one it is to be dyed.

2 comments:

  1. have u tried using citric acid? it works well for white fabric =D have a try ^^

    I bet your han-eri would looks nice once it's cleaned

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  2. Thank you for commenting!
    I didn't try out citric acid, yet. I am afraid it could damage the silk. Maybe I'll test it with some scrap silk. Thanks for the advice! ^^

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