linens

Linens, also referred to uncountably as linen, are fabric household goods intended for daily use, such as bedding, tablecloths, and towels. "Linens" may also refer to church linens, the altar cloths used in church.

==History== thumb|A close-up of the texture of hand-woven linen fabric made in the early 20th century in the Balkans. thumb|An illustration of how to Darning|darn linen, from the Encyclopedia of Needlework (1884) by Thérèse de Dillmont. thumb|A French armoire with home linens arranged in a traditional manner, with embroidered dust covers over the shelves. The earliest known household linens were made from thin yarn spun from flax fibres to make linen cloth. Ancient Egypt, Babylon, and Phoenicia all cultivated flax crops. The earliest surviving fragments of linen cloth have been found in Egyptian tombs and date to 4000 BCE. Flax fibres have been found in cloth fragments in Europe that date to the Neolithic prehistoric age.