Monica,

The answer is simple: "NO".

There are some fabrics which possess inherent vice that make them
entirely unsuiitable for use with museum and heirloom objects, art,
and artifacts. Margaret Geiss-Mooney noted a number of those -
especially wool or wool blend fabrics. A natural constituent of wool
is suplhur - this can produce a "burn" tarnish/corrosion effect on
silver and other metals in intimate contact and also it outgassess
badly - elemental sulphur when combined with the ambient moisture in
the air produces....yes, that's right, sulphuric acid, essentailly
acid rain.

There are other fabrics which I would doubt would make good choices
for exhibition use - silks, for instance, are not only highly
suscestible to degradation by light and temperature but is also an
excellent "food" for pests.

Washing fabrics is simply done to remove the sizing that is applied to
many textiles as well as any other contaminents that may be in the
fabric. It is also a good check to see if the textile is colorfast
when exposed to moisture - you would not want to find that out when
the collection either floods or gets soaked when the fire sprinklers
go off.

The reason why it is important to buy only fabrics that have been Oddy
tested is because often commercial companies change the formulations
of both fabrics and dyes, and what may seem safe at one time may not
be so in a year or two. The same goes for ALL materials in the exhibit
or museum environment - from carpets to paints.

I am sure that there are others on the List who know much more about
this topic than I, but I would strongly suggest that you follow
Margaret's advice in the previous posting on this topic.

Cheers!
Dave

David Harvey
Conservator
Los Angeles, California



On 4/17/07, Simpson, Monica <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> I'd like to hear from a conservator as to whether simply washing fabric
> eliminates "chemicals" and makes the fabric safe for use with objects.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Monica
>
>
>
>  ________________________________
>

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