I'm crossposting because I don't want to write out the basics twice. My friend B had her house completely immersed in water during the levee breaks, and it stayed flooded for several weeks. I told her I would store anything she could rescue, as she is now living in a FEMA travel trailer (that's a very small caravan to the Brits). Until about three or four weeks ago, her house still had a coating of thick, sticky mud all over, but it had finally dried out when we went over to help last week. She brought over some dishes which had survived the swirling water, plus a few of her son's autographed concert t-shirts (he is a young sound tech) and two unglazed embroidered pictures she had done 30 years ago when her dh was in grad school, all to be stored in our garden shed until she could get back to deal with them.
Dishes which had been on top of the stack had a 1/8 to 1/4 inch coat of dried Mississippi mud, plus some white crystalline substance on top. The t-shirts were filthy and stinking, and the embroideries were a horrible dark greyish brownish color, on which you really could not discern the pattern. Naturally, dh and I figured we should do what we could to help. I dumped all of the t-shirts - one a bright red but very old one - into the washer with cool water and some detergent to soak, then carefully ran more cool water into the kitchen sink with just a touch of dish liquid, and put the stitchery in that. Went back to the laundry and Horrors - the old red, much washed t-shirt was discharging dye like crazy!!! Swiftly spun everything out, pulled out that shirt and a black one, and started again. Left the shirts to soak, then went back to the sink, let the filthy water run away and refilled it. Did that about three times, then left the stitchery to soak overnight in plain water. Ran the washer again, then left it to soak overnight as well. Next day, the stitching was much better, but had a coat of very fine residue on it. I took an old, very soft toothbrush, and gently brushed it away under water, then left it for further soaking.
When I finally spun out the t-shirts, the poly-cotton blends were fine, but the all-cotton ones were disintegrating! Holes all over!! Fortunately, the autographs were all still intact and readable, but the shirts still smelled musty. Washed the other two, and the red shirt came out perfect. The black one, which had an undamaged plastic type picture and logo on the front, came out with paler and darker orange streaks, as though it had been tie-dyed. (the owner was thrilled!! said it looked much better that way than plain black, and has been showing it off to all his friends and colleagues.) The shirts still smelled musty, so gave them all a coat of Febreeze. Unfortunately I have now done that twice, and they still smell a little, but I daren't do anything more radical.
After seeing what happened to the shirts, I was in fear and trembling over the embroideries. I got them clean enough to see that they were two cross-stitch bird pictures, Columbia Minerva 1973, and had been stitched with 6-strand floss. However, I reached for my trusty sodium perborate, and left them to soak in a weak solution. This improved them to the point where the cotton background was a dark beige as though it had been tea-dyed, so I decided to try again. Two more soakings in even weaker solutions, and it has come out a very pale beige, sort of "antique white" and B is delighted. Unfortunately, when they were first framed, the framer had stapled foam backing to the back board, then taped the fabric over that, and the staples all rusted away into the fabric. I tried various items in my little home chemistry set, to no avail. Ah well, those rust stains will be hidden when we reframe them for her, which we will do with archival materials and a glass front to protect them.
(p.s. Yes, we washed the dishes for her as well. After all, she does have a full-time job. The ones with thick mud in them got soaked in the kitchen sink first, then everything run through the dishwasher on the potscrubber cycle. Some took twice through to get clean, others had to be scrubbed with mild cleanser after they came out.)
Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.