I’m working on restoring an old skirt for my sister. Major challenges for this project:
Uneven discoloration, with significant yellowing at the top of the garment and relatively little discoloration toward the hem
Substantially degraded fabric, especially at the lace bands and the panel between them. Some of the lace disintegrated at initial handling, and some of the middle panel had disintegrated before the skirt came to me
The biggest task was to replace the center panel. Given the discoloration, matching was an issue. Neither bleached white nor unbleached cotton was a good match, but offwhite was the closest. As you can see in the picture, the center panel is visibly yellower than the lace in natural light. Under slightly yellow indoor lighting, this difference disappears but obviously I want a natural-light match as well. A bleach treatment will help reverse some of the age-related discoloration and even out the mismatching.
Before I could install the new panel, however, I had to repair the lace. Luckily the part that was damaged was the background rather than the pattern, so it was a pretty quick fix. There remains some concern, though, of further damage because the fabric is clearly weakened.
