In search of heavyweight linen
A journey into the linen landscape, from the 1800s to today—and some good shopping resources
Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of The Bell!
Ahhh, linen. Conjures the image of a confident, middle-aged Nancy Meyers heroine enjoying a glass of very good white wine in her sun soaked kitchen, elegantly rumpled linen top and pants flowing with her gestures.
But mass-produced linen, especially bedding, famously falls short of its promises: it’s too scratchy, it sheds/pills too much, it’s too expensive… and most egregiously, it wears threadbare after just a few washes and uses.
I bought a set of fairly inexpensive linen sheets from The Citizenry a few years back and was really disappointed with the quality. The fitted sheet actually tore after about a year of washes and wear.
Such was my perception of linen when I started going through the linen cabinets at our house in France, lovingly stocked by my husband’s ancestors over hundreds of years. Much to my surprise, the linen I found there did not bear the faintest resemblance to the linen I’d encountered in sheets and apparel up to that point.
It was thick, it was tightly woven, it had a light sheen to the surface, it was sturdy, it was heavy. Like, need-to-wash-at-the-laundromat heavy because our standard washer can’t handle it. One flat sheet weighs easily 10 lbs, I’m not exaggerating.
Take a look at this Etsy listing to get a sense of what I mean. The 18”x18” piece of fabric for sale dates from the 1800s and bears a strong resemblance to what we have. You can see the weight. As the seller says, it’s hand-loomed (of course, there were no machine looms at that time), strong and durable, and takes dye well. Drool.
We were so fortunate to inherit a bunch of these linens with the house. They’re in varying degrees of repair; some are embroidered and have obviously been treasured, some have clearly been damaged and mended, some have long been relegated to drop cloths. Some have been torn into smaller squares for various uses. They’re all flat sheets / big rectangles of cloth. (At the time they were manufactured, people folded flat sheets around the mattress because elastic hadn’t been invented yet.)
But they’re all still around and in circulation, hundreds of years later. If a piece of fabric is no longer fit for purpose as a tablecloth or bedsheet, it gets repurposed for another use.
After discovering this magical, extremely heavy linen, I (naively) thought that was just how they made linen in France. Sigh, no. That’s just how they made linen in France 200 years ago.
I know this because my French husband equally understands what a valuable resource we have in all that antique linen, and he equally wants to know (a) if anyone makes it like that anymore, and (b) why they stopped?
In researching this newsletter, I took to Reddit to find out what the conversation was around recently produced linen bedding. Turns out there are multiple threads devoted to the specific challenge of linen sheets. In r/Bedding, users complain about the quality of the linen they bought from Parachute, Brooklinen, Williams Sonoma, Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, West Elm, and Canadian brand Flax Home.
One poster—who devoted 1,272 words to the topic—seems to have tried them all and recommends buying linen bedding from Eastern European sellers on Etsy, Magic Linen or Lenok. Another poster recommended contacting the seller about the weight, and said they’d had good luck with the 7.7 oz / sq yd weight from Rough Linen. (Editor’s note: the photos of linen sheets on the website look visibly heavier than most, but another poster in a different thread said their Rough Linen sheets tore in under a year.)
According to the first poster, “Properly cared for Eastern European linen can last 5+ years with daily use.”
Read that again. Five years is considered a huge win for bedding you’ve invested $500-$1,000 in for one king-size set. I understand that the poster is really pleased with this outcome, but to me, it feels hard to accept.
In r/BuyItForLife (my new favorite place on the internet) (sidebar: check out this adorable vintage lawnmower someone restored. Cutting grass in style!) there’s a thread asking whether other users own linen sheets that have lasted more than five years. Apparently I’m not the only one who accepts such limited value for money (and such waste of no-longer-usable fabric!)
One poster declared they were throwing in the (linen) towel—“I don’t understand the infatuation with linen sheets, I’m done with them. They’re more expensive, less soft, and much less durable than high quality long staple cotton sheets.”—and that got a lot of upvotes.
But the people who remain committed to linen bedding for various reasons (they’re cool in the summer, warm in the winter, 100% natural and breathable, and also gorgeous) threw in some really helpful suggestions:
Stay away from washed, stonewashed, or enzyme-washed processes, which strip the linen of five years of life. “Real quality, sturdy linen is like sleeping on canvas at the beginning, then it softens up,” says one poster.
Buy bolts of 100% linen solids from a fabric store like Joann or Ferguson’s Irish Linen or a pair of antique linen sheets on Etsy, and sew them together with a center seam to make king size sheets.
The consensus is that Linoto is the best current manufacturer of linen bedding if you (like me) are probably not going to sew your own. Interestingly, the founder’s statement shares that he started the company because of the exact same linen pain points as we’re all experiencing. And because I find quality goes hand in hand with craftsmanship, I wasn’t surprised to learn that the company is proud of its skilled artisans working in Westchester County, NY. The raw materials come from Belgium and Italy, and the finished pieces are made in the USA. I definitely plan to support Linoto next time I need something linen.
So, it seems that heavy-ish linen is still manufactured, but not anywhere near as heavy as it used to be.
Why?
Linen comes from flax. (Interestingly, flax is among the first textiles produced by humans, with scraps of linen found in cave dwellings in the Caucasus estimated to be 30,000 years old!! (Source))
The journey from flax seed to woven linen fabric is a labor-intensive and complicated process. The linen fibers are hidden inside the flax stalks, so extracting them is difficult, then weaving them into fabric requires a great deal of skill. (I wonder who first thought to look inside the flax stalks?)
So, linen is laborious and expensive to produce. The heavier the weave, the more expensive the finished product. In addition, antique linen was all hand-woven, which lends itself to being stronger, crisper, and slightly heavier than its machine-woven alternative. Hand weaving is, you guessed it, more expensive than machine production.
But I couldn’t help but wonder (Carrie Bradshaw voice) whether a market actually still exists for newly produced, hand-woven, heavyweight linen? A market certainly exists for the antique kind.
By the way, here’s a great article on the flax-to-linen production process. This site also appears to be a great place to buy fabric of all kinds for your sewing projects.
If you want to enjoy heavy French antique linen but linen bedding is not for you, get some torchons! French tea towels are the best. They’re durable, supple, cute, and lasting! You can always find these at French flea markets and they’re easy (if heavy lol) to pack, so pick some up on your next trip.
And if you see a giant antique linen sheet at the flea, snag it! Use it as a tablecloth. Use it as a picnic blanket. Cover a chair with it. You won’t regret it.
For more information on buying antique French linen, go here.
For more information on caring for antique French linen, go here and here.
And I’d really like to know: do you use linen bedding, tablecloths, napkins, aprons, towels, etc? Would you buy linen approximating the antique weight if it was produced and available? Let me know in the comments.
This has been so fun to research and I hope you enjoyed learning about it, too. Let’s go to the French flea markets together and stock up on antique linen. I’ll be your guide.
Until then, I’ll talk to you Friday with this week’s recs.
xx Jane
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This is a wonderful post and fascinating information. Like Rachel's mom, I'm into linen everything! But for bed sheets, I like high thread count, 100% cotton, laundered and ironed at home, feels and smells heavenly when your head hits the pillow! I used to stitch up linen tea towels - super easy, no seams!
Linen is my absolutely #1 favorite fabric, but unless you have really good linen, it’s a complete nightmare. When my grandmother passed away, the only thing my mother wanted was her massive collection of table linen, some of which has been handed down to me.
Thomas Ferguson in Ireland makes the absolute best linen today: it’s heavy and thick and gets to be so soft. I can’t get enough! (And the prices are reasonable for the insane quality.)