Friday, January 15, 2021

Laundering Longaberger Bedding

If you are fortunate to have Longaberger's quality comforters and other fabric items, how should they be laundered?  I looked back at the 2000 booklet Living in Style with Longaberger, shown in the photos, and found lots of gorgeous photography and wonderful products but no information about laundering.    

All of Longaberger's exclusive fabrics were high-quality, very beautiful prints and solids.  I washed my Longaberger comforters in my front-loading washing machine and then let them dry outside, when possible, or hanging from a railing inside.  My son and his friend, probably about age 7 or 8 then, slept in our guest room one night.  His friend had a not-unusual-for-him nosebleed at some point, and blood dried on the Sentimental Rose/Garden Splendor comforter, which had a white background.  When I noticed this, I treated it with Spray & Wash, washed it in cold water, and no trace of the blood was left.   

When I washed my Longaberger chair cushions, which lived on forever, I would let them air dry and then spray heavily with ScotchGard and let them dry again.  When possible, don't dry Longaberger items but instead hang them up, lay them flat, or stretch them over a protector to dry.

When I became a Longaberger consultant in 1989, we had two fabric liner options:  plain muslin, with ivory lace and ribbon, for a few baskets as well as the red and white gingham check for the two Picnic Baskets.  Thankfully, the fabric choices and products offered multiplied greatly from that humble beginning.  Longaberger's beautiful bedding came out around 1999 or 2000, and by then fabric items were offered to use throughout the home.  Tablecloths, placemats, and napkins were popular items.

Eventually it cost Longaberger too much to offer fabric liners for all of the baskets.  If you consider the number of basket liners offered in a WishList back in the day, often offered in 5 or 6 fabrics each, you can see that this couldn't continue.  Too many liners went unsold, resulting in the massive overstock you could find at Longaberger Homestead practically being given away after several years.  Longaberger later tried offering fabric squares in different sizes that could decorate any basket, which is something you might try at home.  Easy to drape, launder, and change.

I'm sorry that it took me so long to answer the question about laundering bedding, and then I couldn't even find an "official" answer.  Enjoy that timeless bedding!

1 comment:

  1. Hello, which flyer was the provincial cottage bedding in? I’m hoping to purchase the flyer on EBay. Thank you for your time?

    ReplyDelete