Caring for Linen — an easy to follow guide

Linen has a reputation for being demanding, and the reputation is wrong. It is one of the oldest textiles in the world, woven and washed for thousands of years before the 'delicate cycle' existed. A good linen tablecloth, cared for simply, will outlast most of the furniture in the room and get softer every year it does. Here is everything you need to know, which is less than you think.

Check the label first. Everything below is the safe consensus for pure linen, but the item's own care label overrules anything to the contrary. Some finishes and dyes have their own rules.

Washing. Machine wash cool, 30°C, with a mild detergent. Skip bleach and anything marked "whitening" or "optical brightener", both weaken the fibre and dull natural colour over time. Give the cloth room in the drum rather than packing the machine tight; linen creases where it's crushed. Wash before things get desperate — a lightly used cloth washes clean, a cloth left stained for a month is a restoration project.

Drying. Line drying is best and gives you that particular crispness nothing else quite manages. If you tumble dry, keep it low and take the cloth out while it's still slightly damp. Bone-dry heat is what makes linen feel brittle and bakes in creases you'll spend the whole afternoon trying to iron out.

Ironing. Iron damp, on a medium-hot setting, and it glides. Or don't iron at all. A rumpled linen cloth or napkin on a relaxed table is not a failure of housekeeping, it's the texture doing what it was made to do — we'd argue the imperfection is the point. Save the crisp press for the occasions that call for it.

Stains. Act quickly and gently. Blot, never rub; rubbing pushes the stain deeper and roughs the weave. Rinse from the back with cold water — heat sets a stain, so keep anything stained away from hot water, the dryer and the iron until it's fully gone. For most food and wine, cold water and a little mild dish soap do the job. For anything stubborn, repeat gentle rounds rather than reaching for chlorine bleach, which damages linen fibre.

Storage. Store clean, completely dry and somewhere that breathes: a shelf, a cotton bag, a drawer. Never plastic, which traps moisture and yellows white linen over time. If a cloth lives folded for months, refold it along different lines now and then so no single crease becomes permanent. Our Summerill & Bishop tablecloths come packaged in their own beautiful box, perfect for storing.

That's the whole regime. Linen rewards use, every wash makes it softer, and a cloth that comes out for Tuesday dinners rather than waiting for occasions earns its keep twice over. If you're choosing a new one, start with the right size, then look at our own linen dinner napkins, cut and stitched by hand in a small studio in Lithuania, Summerill & Bishop's tablecloths and napkins, or a Volga Linen tablecloth in one of their jewel-toned colours.

A little extra tip from Steph — as soon as the guests leave, pop the linen on a quick, gentle cycle whilst loading the dishwasher and tidying up, then hang it to dry overnight.