INFORMAL LINENS FOR THE 
COUNTRY HOME 
AMELIA LEAVITT HILL 
The Growing Popularity of Outdoor Living Brings New 
Styles of Linen for Luncheons on the Sun Porch, 
Tea in the Garden, and Other Informal Occasions 
CONTRAS!' to the exquisite fineness so long re- 
garded as a necessity by the careful housewife, the 
newest table linens of to-day are of the heaviest 
(sflOsi materials coarsely woven, but so well made and em¬ 
bellished with such fine embroidery that they are quite as 
attractive as the finer linens and damasks used to be. 
Perhaps this is due in part to the growing popularity of outdoor 
life and to the demand for table “fixings” adapted to the out¬ 
door dining room as well as to that within. Perhaps it is due 
to the increasing informality of every day life. For as a matter 
of fact, the dinner table remains an exception to this new rule, 
and there exquisite linens and damasks still hold their own, as is 
suited to a period of the day when outdoor life is no longer possi¬ 
ble. But for luncheon tea, or that variable meal, Sunday night 
supper, the new informal materials, as they may be called, are 
exceedingly popular, both for indoor and outdoor use. While 
color is called into play in table decorations far more than it has 
been in the past, it has not to any noticeable extent been intro¬ 
duced into linens; the modern table is colorful, but the effect is 
produced by colored decorations; as a rule the background of 
the picture is white or cream. 
One notable and attractive exception—if it be an exception, 
since even here the groundwork is not affected—is a novel set 
consisting of tablecloth and napkins banded in color, though 
the groundwork remains creamy in hue. It may be had touched 
with green or pale yellow, one or the other of which, in these 
days of color contrasts, is sure to either blend into or pleasantly 
contrast with whatever hue is otherwise emphasized in the 
decorations of the table and the room. This is one of the few 
instances where color has been successfully used in what may be 
classified as the more formal services, the slight amount of it 
employed having kept the set well within the possibilities of 
“TEA FOR TWO" 
“Tea for two,” or more, may most conveniently be served by the combined use of tea-wagon and small table, and 
for this the Italian linens are particularly charming and come in all grades of material and all degrees of elabora¬ 
tion. A long runner with doylies and napkins to match gives a cool informal touch. (Linens by McCutcheon) 
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