Old Food Stains on a Tablecloth

Archives: Request: Old Tablecloth With An Old Stain to Match Archived on 01/04/2007 My husband's mother gave us one of her mother's beautiful white tablecloths, the only problem is that it has a big coffee stain (I think) on it! I have tried washing it with oxyclean this did not work. Will a paste of oxyclean hurt it? It is very old and I do not want to wear a hole in it. Does anyone else have any ideas? I would like to use this tablecloth for Thanksgiving. I thought about tea staining the whole thing to match the stain. It would be pretty but I am afraid that the stain will get darker and I will be back where I started from. Thanks for any advice! sarah_bellum Answers: RE: Old Tablecloth With An Old Stain to Match You can try this-it has worked well for me. I do a lot of thrift shopping for kids clothes and I have been able to remove a lot of set in stains. Get a big bucket and fill it with very hot water. Add 1 cup of laundry detergent and 1/2 cup of powder dishwasher detergent. Let sit at least 24 hours. When you wash in the machine, add the same of both detergents to the washload. Good luck. (10/27/2004) By angelpitts RE: Old Tablecloth With An Old Stain to Match I have had great success with BIZ and Clorox II. Take a plastic bucket and put about 1 cup of each in a gallon of your hottest water. Stir it until it is dissolved then fill bucket to 3/4th full with cold water, stir and then add your stained article. I have soaked things for up to 5 days. If, when you check it you can still see some stain, leave it for another day or two! I rescued two beautiful baptismal gowns that had been stored away for 30 years. When they were unpacked they had horrible old formula stains! They came out snowy white and stain free! I have used the dry dishwasher detergent too but I would caution against using it on anything very old and fragile as it is pretty harsh. Good Luck! (10/27/2004) RE: Old Tablecloth With An Old Stain to Match If nothing else works, spray it with oven cleaner, wait 10 min (like ez-off) and then was as usual. Chefs use this to get food stains out of their white jackets. (10/27/2004) By lindal RE: Old Tablecloth With An Old Stain to Match I soak the stain in lemon juice and set it out in the sun. You may have to do this more than once. I usually set the item on the truck of the car since you need to spread the stained area out on a flat surface. (10/27/2004) By Ann RE: Old Tablecloth With An Old Stain to Match If the stain is in fact a coffee stain and it was black coffee with no milk or cream, try this: hold the part of the cloth with the stain on it over a sink or bathtub and pour boiling water onto and through it. I had a tablecloth that had a very old coffee stain on it and this worked; it took a couple of teapots full of boiling water, but the stain came out. Won't work as well if there was milk or cream in the stain, though! (10/27/2004) By Lynn from Calif. RE: Old Tablecloth With An Old Stain to Match I'm wondering if you thought of staining the entire tablecloth with coffee to give it an antiqued look? Rather than work so hard to get out that "one bad apple", maybe it's time to apply "if you can't beat em join em". (10/28/2004) By melody_yesterday RE: Old Tablecloth With An Old Stain to Match My mom has used a solution she read of years ago. She used equal parts of 20 mule team borax and dishwasher powder (Cascade, I think). A Tablespoon and 1/2 of each. I keep an old diaper pail by my laundry to do presoak - I love that the lid locks down! (10/28/2004) By melody_yesterday RE: Old Tablecloth With An Old Stain to Match I have used oxiclean as a paste and have had excellant results. I made a paste and covered the stain and rolled up the article so the paste is on the stain and let it set for 24 hours. This is very gentle on a delicate fabric. Another good one for stains is Yellow Out but may be damaging to older fabric, but I use this a lot in place of bleach. Good Luck! (10/28/2004) By Charlotte Report Spam or Abuse