Ageing new Fabrics

I may have some protests when my neighbors ride past the house and see all the long lines of fabric hanging on the fences with clothespins on them, but I don't have years to wait until the fabrics are naturally faded, so I had to take matters into my own hands.HaHa Have you ever really thought about what people do to get things to look old. They bleach them, coat them in lemon juice and put them in the sun, bake them in the oven,  take a hammer and chains and beat things up, poor all sort of concoctions on items, sand repeatedly, or use a sand blaster,  and MY SPECIALTY, which leaves the dolls tembling when they see this is ( bringing out the dental tools ). It's funny now, but my husband used to walk in the room and see me sanding away on a poor doll until it's cloth would split, or cutting  off ears or noses with abandon, like throwing away a banana peel, he just grimaced  and walked away, I believe he was really concerned  about me, or he couldn't bear to watch what I was doing to and probably ruining more good dolls.

 I am hanging out lots of pieces of fabric in the weather for about a month, through wind, sun and rain. Hopefully this will give me some fading and probably a few small holes. I realize this is still not as good as antique fabric, but the sun, rain, and wind and space on the fences is free, not so antique fabrics. When I do get a special piece of some old cloth, I am afraid to use it, for fear, I'll never get another piece of anything like it. So, if you are brave, and can justify your actions to your neighbors, I think it is worth a try to get the look of clothes you want. I don't know if the people long ago had these problems. did they try to make antique dolls too, and had to scrape up fabric to do what they wanted. Who knows, but Izannah Walker was a person who I think would not have been above doing something like this to get the results she wanted.