Maid Marian Progress: Sleeve Lining

Lately I've been trying to be good about using up what I have and not buying any fabric unless I absolutely have to. So, when I got to the point of lining the sleeves on my Maid Marian dress I was stuck. None of the fabrics I had looked good with it. If you look at this photo you can see her sleeve lining is a light brown, looks almost tea dyed...right? ;) So I decided to make an adventure out of it and decided to make some of my fabric work.

I took some white fabric I had in my stash (I think it used to be a sheet) and cut out the pieces for the lining...but I thought white was a little boring so I decided to add something pretty to it.

 I played around with some of the different stitches on my sewing machine until I found a couple I liked.

 Then I started sewing lines.

 And more lines...

 Until the whole piece was transformed into a much more interesting piece of fabric.

 And then I did the same to the other sleeve.

 Next, I took about 10 Trader Joe's Irish Breakfast tea bags and put them in a non metal bowl.

 I added boiling water and let the tea steep for a few minutes:

 And made myself a cup of tea with the extra water. ;)

 Then I added my fabric. Here is where I made a mistake...I left the tea bags in thinking it would help the fabric darken but it ended up making some dark spots in odd places...so if you ever do this you may want to take the tea bags out first! But hey...you live and learn.

 I let that 'brew' for about 6 hours (you can go longer if you want a darker brown) and I flipped the fabric over every now and then to make sure it was all getting colored evenly. Then rinsed them and soaked them in cold water for a few minutes, then wrung them out and hung them up to dry.

The end result:

I am pretty pleased with it overall! I think it looks quite Medieval, don't you? I'm excited to sew the sleeves together next and see how it all looks!