Salvaging a worn doily

Years ago, I crocheted a large doily out of a pretty lime-green color crochet cotton that I was just wild about at the time. Not surprisingly, I quickly grew tired of that not-so-subtle color, and I would go on to use that doily outdoors, where it suffered the ravages of time and ended up a dirty and very faded shade of green. I couldn't bear to throw it out, though, because it had taken so much time to crochet, so I threw it in the washing machine a few times but eventually just stored it with a pile of old linens.

Recently I was going through some of the linens and ran across the old doily.

It featured the pineapple design shown here, that sort of fan-shaped motif that women like me have been crocheting for decades. And then it dawned on me: Why not let the doily soak in some tea for a few days? I had some old (loose) tea and boiled it in a pot, the brew stout enough to trot a mouse over, I'm sure, but it did the trick of bringing the doily back to life.

And my tea-dyed doily in the soft cotton thread is now in use once again! So if you've got some old linen piece that's discolored but usable, I thought you might like to know that my tea-dyeing solution worked out quite well for me here.

Funny enough, not long after the tea-dyeing episode, I came across this hardback book in Goodwill for a dollar and some change. "A Bit of Velvet & A Dash of Lace" by Robin Brown, it's called. Didn't I once own that book? I'm almost sure I did, but it had long since disappeared or been loaned out, so I bought this one.

And inside is a lovely feature on "How to Tea Stain Lace." Guess you could say we're on the same page!