My Faux Vintage Linens

Our first empty nest Labor Day was kept very simple.
The husband played golf.

I made something useful out of hoarded stuff.

It’s one of my favorite things to do, and only half the fun is the finished product. The other half is figuring out how to bring it to completion at no cost. Other tightwads will relate. 

The man of the house
does not understand

the pleasure in this

and said as much…

Then, he left  to spend four hours

 chasing a little white ball across the ground

 with a funny shaped stick.

While he was ball chasing, I made my very own vintage napkins. OK, they’re not technically vintage since I just made them yesterday, but they do have a faded vintage look to them. I got the inspiration from Carol at The Polka Dot Closet. 

I made them to match one of my favorite old tablecloths. It belongs to the Duchess.

It’s her cookie cloth

(I yakked about cookie cloths HERE) 

For my napkins, I used hoarded white fabric from The List. Because I want to actually use these napkins, the fabric had to be treated at least a day in advance in a solution of...

2 Tablespoons alum

2 ½ teaspoons washing soda

½ teaspoon fabric softener

1 cup of very hot water

It created more froth than my Milli Vanilli Ice Cream in a Can ever did so I let it settle for a few minutes.

Then I:
Cut the fabric into pieces the size of an 8 ½ by 11 sheet of paper.
Soaked those pieces in the mixture for about 15 minutes.
Rinsed and  hung to dry for about a day.

Then, I scanned the pattern from the tablecloth that I wanted to use on my napkin. I don’t have a picture of this because it’s hard enough to get a tablecloth to fit on a printer screen without the added feature of a shiny red Kodak.

Here’s the photo copy sitting on the table cloth.

Pretty good.

Then, I cut 8 ½ by 11 pieces of freezer paper

 and ironed the treated fabric

 to the waxy side of the freezer paper.

This makes waxy fabric paper.

which you feed through the printer

to copy your vintage pattern.

Peel it off.

And Ta Da!

Milli Vanilli vintage fabric?

Since it was only 8 ½ by 11 inches, my napkin was on the small side.
I’m calling it a tea towel instead.
I could have purchased some pretty fabric to jazz it up, but since this was supposed to be a cost free project, I just cut up more strips of that white cotton and coffee stained them to match that dark tan color in the tablecloth.

I had to stain and dry twice

 to get them the color that I wanted.

By the end, I had coffee stained counters,

a coffee stained floor,

and coffee stained hands.

 I also had coffee stained fabric so it was worth it.

I stitched the two homemade fabrics together and lined the whole thing with more hoarded remnant. And there you have it. They are not a perfect match, but they are pretty close and didn't cost a dime.

All in about the time it took the husband

to play a few rounds of golf.

Who’s smirking now?

All he has to show for it are some achy muscles.

I, on the other hand, have

 handmade coffee stained faux vintage tea towels.