I never expected to end up with a collection of linens that span four generations of women on both sides of my family. Especially since, as a teenager, I’d hope for the latest record for my birthday only to be disappointed when Nanna Francesca gave me tablecloths ‘for my Glory box’. Again. For years these sat unused along with the tea towels, doilies and other items I also had no interest in then.
Now I find myself with a chest of drawers filled with linens from Italy, England, Ireland and Australia that I treasure, many made by hand by my grandmothers and bisnonni. There’s a lovely sense of connection in gently holding the fabrics and lace they held… each created and once warmed by their hands. Carefully hand-laundered at the village fountain or the backyard washtub. Placed on tables, or wedding beds, or hidden away for ‘good’.
The designs reflect different cultures, or eras. Great-grandma Charlotte’s crocheted doily for the bread basket is more than a hundred years old. By the mid-20th century, Grandma Lorna, created her more modern take, using green and yellow for a doily. Bisnonna Francesca Carozza’s monogrammed bed linens (CF centre) are also from a century ago, in Calabria, when such items were among the few a woman had to her own name.
The style of embroidery, stitches and cutwork can identify the maker. So too the tiny ‘sewer’s mark’ (see the tablecloth edge pictured next to the initialled linen). Neat, little knots on the back of a piece (pictured) are a sign of hand sewing.
I’ve learnt that they used linen, cotton, flax or hemp, sometimes grown and spun themselves. Cotton warms beneath your hand. Linen stays cool. Hemp retains texture and an earthy scent even after the material is scrubbed with scoria stones in the river then dried in the sun, as were the sheets Granny Maddalena brought to Australia from Abruzzo. A trick to whiten linen is to place it under the moonlight. This is still done today.
In many cultures, linens are passed down from generation to generation and interestingly, with age, most of the natural fabrics become softer yet stronger. I mentioned in Mezza Italiana that those tablecloths Nanna Francesca gave me for birthdays during the 1980s, I’d finally started to use. They’re mostly modest, checked cottons and I can say that now, years later, I truly appreciate them and there’s always one on the kitchen table. Softened with age, perhaps a little faded, but still sturdy and enduring. 💜 Zoë xx
Zoë Boccabella 