Amelia Linen Tablecloth, Blue Stripe

The stripe on a linen tablecloth is one of those details that arrived so long ago it has stopped being a choice and become a given — the blue and oatmeal combination present on the tables of French farmhouses, Belgian brasseries, and Lithuanian weaving traditions that all reached the same conclusion independently and have never felt the need to revisit it.
JJ uses this on the shared table, where the stripe gives the cloth a quiet authority that a plain cloth, however beautiful, does not quite achieve. It creases correctly. It softens with every wash. It looks, after six months of weekly use, considerably better than it did the day it arrived.