Textiles are extremely fragile. Eventually the fibers in any cloth will begin to disintegrate.
Nothing lasts forever, especially textiles.
Our job, if we own one of these treasures, is to lengthen their life by protecting them to the best of our ability. A few enemies of our treasured quilts include light, dirt, humidity, heat, insects, and pressure, among others. As we discussed in a previous article, never put any quilt in direct light, whether natural or artificial. With few exceptions, most of these dyes were not very color-fast, which is why we see greens that have faded to yellow or dull blue, purples that have faded to tan, and blacks have disintegrated the fiber completely. Even today, the dyes currently available can fade fairly rapidly when exposed to light.