Recently I have been going through my studio storage and I came across a bunch of fabrics that I have been saving for my many “some day projects”. As I looked through them I came across a nice piece of blue linen that we picked up in Ukraine.
I started thinking about linen and what a great material it is, it looks great and it is pleasing to the touch. It turns out that linen is one of the oldest textiles known to man. There are samples that have been found dating back to 8,000 BC. Linen was a very important part of ancient culture and was believed to have originated in prehistoric Europe.
Linen is made from the fibers of the flax plant and was the most common fabric until the invention of the cotton gin. The production of cotton material rapidly replaced the production of linen. A few reasons for this is that the flax fiber is difficult to work with and more time consuming to produce, thus making it a more expensive product.
In spite of this, linen continues to be a popular fabric for clothing, bedding and kitchen items such as aprons, table cloths, runners and tea towels.
Linen has many good qualities, it is a very strong material, it is very absorbent and dries faster than cotton. Linen also resists fungus and bacteria and has natural insect repellant properties. Throughout history linen was the primary fabric used for making clothing and household linens.
The production of high quality linen continues to be an important part of the culture of many European countries to this day.
In our shop we have a selection of linen items from Latvia, Belarus and Ukraine.
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