METIS is very French!



  The word means 'mix' and that is exactly what it is - usually 35%cotton and 65% linen - the reverse of our English union which is our cheap and hard wearing sheet fabric, where there is much less linen and ours feels softer and more like calico.  Metis came on to the French nmarket in the early 1900s and was hailed as an easy wash and iron bedding material, much less heavy than pure linen.  It was a very popular wedding present and part of the dowry and that is why you often see pairs still wrapped up in the original cello.

They were considered by some as being rather low-grade and cheap and lay in the back of the linen cupboard.   Some dealers try and charge the full linen price for them - but no French housewife would pay that -  45 Euros is plenty.  The material is a very pleasant creamy shade and I have used it a lot for curtain linings, bed ends, valances and small accessories - it sews and tailors very well and you can get a good sharp look with it.  The sheets are usually larger than the hand woven 19c. linen sheets as they were commercially spun and woven in big factories which had the big looms.  The two previous Blogs try to explain the difference in value and cost of three main types of linen sheets in France