Question about lace tablecloths..

It depends on how “old” they are. Are you talking about 10 years old or 50 years old? Lace can be cleaned to bring back their freshness and get rid of the odor. If they are really old for instance over 40 years and not synthetic, there are antique dealers who specialize in antique lace and would probably give their eye teeth for them. Take a look on eBay and see if there is anything listed there which you can compare them to. Depending on how much time you want to put into them and how creative you are if they are pretty and you want to keep them sometimes they can be sewn together to make a pillow case for display purposes. They can also be used to make a cute little tussy mussy which is really a doiley and some dried flowers used for decoration or hold place cards at dinner.

Their value is also determined on how they were made. Can you tell if they are crocheted or some other type?

Oh, don’t get rid of them, CM!!!! There are so many things that you can do with antique linens!!! But, don’t dry clean them. Here are some hints on how to clean antique linens:

http://antiques.about.com/cs/careandrepair/ht/CleanLinens.htm

Sorry I missed the “tablecloth” part. I was picturing lace doilies. I have seen lace tablecloths used on comforters or bedspreads. You sew them on top of a solid color bedspread but I think you need to really like them to be bothered with that. The easiest thing to do with lace tablecloths is make curtains. If you can post a picture of them I can maybe give you a little more information on their value and whether or not they are worth spending time on.

I will take em if you are just gonna throw em, I love old things like that and I love lace table cloths and curtains and things like that!!!!

I have cleaned heirloom textiles that I have then used in quilts. I love to prowl antique shops and look for unique textiles to use.

Psssst, CM – those table cloths can always be whacked up and sewn into a quilt for, you know….. little girls!

well I dont do quilting 🙂

but I have always wanted to learn how

CM, do you know who they belonged to? Don’t let a family treasure slip through your hands because one of these days you will wish that you had kept those things.

Ask some local antique shops where you can get them appraised. If they are handmade and old, they could be worth a good deal. In today’s ecomony, extra cash could be handy.

One word of caution though, when my mother asked a local antique dealer about her lead crystal, the woman told her it wasn’t worth much and she would take it off my mother’s hands for $xx(less than $100). Fortunately, mother decided that wasn’t enough to bother with and offered it to the kids. We found another dealer and explained that we would pay for the appraisal but we weren’t going to be selling the pieces. The new price was almost 10 times more. Then we asked the second lady what she would pay for the pieces and she offered about 2/3 of their value. She was upfront about needing to pay less for the crystal then what she would be able to turn around and sell them for, but she wasn’t trying to cheat.

I’m not sure the first lady was actually trying to cheat mother, but she was definitely looking at making a big profit. You have to figure that no one would stay in business if they paid you full worth then turned around and sold the item for exactly what they paid.

Moral of that story – you get a more honest result when the appraiser is paid for their work and knows up front that you aren’t seeking to sell whatever it is.