Any way to wash/clean feather pillows?

[Frank Z]

All my jaded feather pillows have a label saying "do not wash" and "do
not dry clean" I'm just wondering if any of you resourceful people
have found a way to clean them.....

Frank

 

[bof]

All my jaded feather pillows have a label saying "do not wash" and "do
not dry clean" I'm just wondering if any of you resourceful people
have found a way to clean them.....

The first time I washed feather pillows I just used soap and water and
hung them on the line on a sunny day, it worked fine, the second time I
tried this the most incredible stench emanated from them afterwards and
no repeat washings would remove it, they had to be chucked out.

 

[Capitol]

According to my memory, very shaky after 60 years, this is a three stage
process.

1) Remove feathers from Pillow cover(ticking)
2) Wash feathers in cool soapy water in bath, strain with a net curtain or
equivalent, rinse a few times with cold water and dry loose turning
frequently to keep separate.
3) Wipe inside of ticking over with a dampened bar of soap (this reduces the
size of the gaps in the material and helps to prevent small pieces of
feather from escaping), refill with dried feathers and restitch.

Anybody else's memory any better?
Regards
Capitol

 

[Stuart]

However, I am imagining the smell of rubber pervading the pillows for ever
after... And the cost of buying tennis shoes and a tumble drier means that
new pillows are a more attractive option to us.


Rod

Rubber smelling pillows .
I'm sure there's a market for that somewhere )
Stuart

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

All my jaded feather pillows have a label saying "do not wash" and "do
not dry clean" I'm just wondering if any of you resourceful people
have found a way to clean them.....

Frank

Yeah. Washing and dry cleaning.

Take ages to stop smelling either way, but a week in the sun and they
are not too bad

 

[Andrew McKay]

Rubber smelling pillows .

Maybe a feature of whether he keeps his jimjams under there, like most
normal people do.....

Andrew

Do you need a handyman service? Check out our
web site at http://www.handymac.co.uk

 

[Guest]

According to my memory, very shaky after 60 years, this is a three stage
process.

1) Remove feathers from Pillow cover(ticking)
2) Wash feathers in cool soapy water in bath, strain with a net curtain or
equivalent, rinse a few times with cold water and dry loose turning
frequently to keep separate.
3) Wipe inside of ticking over with a dampened bar of soap (this reduces the
size of the gaps in the material and helps to prevent small pieces of
feather from escaping), refill with dried feathers and restitch.

Anybody else's memory any better?

That sounds about right. There used to be cleaners who would do it for you,
but I suspect the amount of work in doing it meant that it became cheaper to
replace them. Personally, I prefer hollow fibre fill.

Colin Bignell

 

[Jim Ley]

All my jaded feather pillows have a label saying "do not wash" and "do
not dry clean" I'm just wondering if any of you resourceful people
have found a way to clean them.....

Take 'em to a dry cleaners, we had a load of pillows renovated like
this, they turned out excellent.

Jim.