Finding old French linen? I have a strong inclination — a penchant — for such things.
I seek it out but don’t have to go far.
Every vide grenier, brocante, and the occasional upside-down/inside-out brocante-that-could-have-been tucked in the French villages throws old or vieux French linen casually on top of piles of clothes and boxes of *stuff*.
But finding a goldmine source for the old, hand stitched/center-seamed woven linen sheets of 100 years ago?
The ones that when you hang on the line in the sun to dry, come off starched & crisp, ready to fold? Those ones?
That’s now my well-kept secret.
That, and stumbling into the homes of friends who still hold the old linen stacked and ironed in their armoires — and gift them because they like you and they know you cherish what they do: all things good.
I have a tall bottom shelf in an old armoire stacked with sheets. Many were woven before broadlooms, and so the center stitch is full of pride in what I call, a lost art.
Now I am finding pressed and ready-to-table linen napkins — by the dozens. Because they don’t do one or two over here, or a set of four; they DID them by the half or whole dozen — matching tablecloths, of course …
I’m on the edge of having too much … and this I know because I play with opening an armoire (which I don’t have yet) to shelves neatly stacked with take-your-pick beauties to have and hold.
My cup runneth over.
