S l e e p e r

Linen Linens: Perfetto.

When all else goes wrong in a day, turn to the noble, the old, those things whose beauty and usefulness are intertwined.

Also, read about fabrics.

Why are bedclothes called "linens?" Because they originally were made from linen. You can still buy linen sheets. I was seduced by Cheryl Mendelson's description of them in her strangely beguiling book Home Comforts. The queen of fibers, she said. Great body. Crispness. The only thing for summer. (Prosecco for the bed?) The way they let air circulate around the sleeper, they way they don't cling. Prized through the ages for the way they come clean, cleaner than cotton...

Linen is made from the fibers of the flax plant. It is pretty much indestructible and does not lint or pill. Of course I had to have linen linens to know what sleeping in the 14th century was like, although I could only afford pillowcases. All the fine linen in the U.S. is imported, mainly from Belgium, Ireland, France, and Italy. It is apparently difficult and time consuming to make. (When I learned that, I was lost.)

Until they make phyllo pastry linens, then, or for the next twenty years, whichever comes first, I will enjoy these Italian cases.

Over a recent few hot nights here in New York, the fabric was a cool relief against our skin, even after just one washing. You can actually launder these sheets in the machine and even dry them on low in the dryer. But really I love them for how they look. Without ironing. Handsome, yes? Like the bed Juliet leapt out of.

Maybe someone will buy us the actual sheets. Mi piace molto l'idea.

Bed, Bath, and Betrayed!

I've been hearing from sleepers who ordered the plain-finish Hotel Fine Linens from BB&B and were bitterly disappointed. Buying sheets at BB&B is a tricky business. They sell a lot of different sheeting under the Hotel Fine Linens brand.

What does that mean? Packages that look exactly alike, with 600 thread count specs, actually contain different sheets. Look for the fine print: You want the ones made in India, not China. The Hotel sheets I tried and found to be amazing are the ones with a tiny checked pattern in the weave. They come in either bright white or cream.

The jacquard weave is too shiny a sateen, and it's ugly. The plain finish are a totally different sheet, scratchy and dull.

You should always go to the store (ugh, I know) to see what you're getting. As I've learned so painfully, it's hard to buy sheets online.

White Sheets + Black Dog?

Yes, certainly.

Next question, please.

Great Hotel-Style Sheets, for Cheap!

After my recent Frette nightmare, I wondered about the whole idea of "hotel" sheets. Why do we want our beds at home to be like hotel beds?

People think they want hotel sheets (and beds) because they tend to sleep really well in hotels, much better than at home. It's not the sheets, though. It's that you've left your clutter, obligations, possibly your kids, possibly possibly a noisy co-sleeper, possibly an enthusiastic pet, behind for a bit. A clean room! Which if you muss, someone else straightens. A number to call for a pot of coffee or a martini, a button to push if any little thing isn't to your satisfaction. And, yes, a very decent bed, and immaculately smooth sheets. Who wouldn't sleep well? Given a certain kind of hotel.

You can't duplicate that experience at home, although I did try once. I was, at age 7, besotted with Holiday Inn after we stayed there during a freak storm on a family camping trip. I loved the smell of the room, the way my Self seemed to disappear in it. Everywhere there were notes from the Holiday InnKeeper, reassuring us that the room was prepared specially for us (an Us who did not fight loudly or smell like onions, and who deserved a neatly folded toilet-tissue edge). I hopefully reproduced these little tent cards in my own bedroom after vigorously cleaning and dusting it. I never achieved the beguiling scent that I now know is a mix of old cigarette smoke and freon, and there was my dingy yellow "cloud" on the bed. Maybe there is something to the Hotel imprimatur.

To that end, Bed Bath & Beyond's Hotel Fine Linens are what those lousy Frette sheets wish they were. They're 600 thread count, which matters not a whit, but the weave is dense and luxurious. They're also sateen, but not unctuous; they just have a delicious smoothness to them. They're Egyptian cotton, made in India. If you want the full "hotel" experience, you'll have to iron them, but they look great out of the dryer. The cotton's long staple means it doesn't stick to your skin on humid nights. I mean, if you turn off your Hotel air conditioner for a minute to see what sleeping at home is like.

Incidentally I peeled off the many covers of the wonderful hotel bed above and discovered the sheets were made in India, had no name brand, and were exactly like these.

But don't buy them to turn your bedroom into a hotel; buy them because they are honest linens of superior quality and they'll make your bed a place you'll be grateful to slip into on its own merits.

Recently you could get a whole set, any size, for $69.99. If you have queensize pillows, buy an extra set of king cases. It's the Hotel line with the tiny checkered pattern in the weave. Best to visit the store to make sure you don't end up with the ugly jacquard finish or the plain-finish Made in China version, which is scratchy. No surprise.

Sleeping in Hotels

Sleeper, the co-sleeper, and the short furry sleeper who sleeps most of all, and who smells sweet after her recent bath, are taking off from the plains and driving home.

I have in mind hotel sleep, one of my favorite kinds of sleep, and want to leave you with the closing passage of Patrick Hamilton's wonderful (newly back in print) novel set in World War II, The Slaves of Solitude. The sensible yet sensitive Miss Roach has returned to London after having fled to a greasy little outlying town, Thames Lockdon, for some months during the bombing. She has just inherited a little money from her aunt and has left the dim environs of the Rosamund Tea Rooms for a double room at Claridge's. After her Private bath, she contemplates the war, her scant finances, the terrifying "Waiter. Chambermaid. Valet" buttons, and thinks it would be just her luck if the blitz came back to London the night she returned to it.

"Then Miss Roach—this slave of her task-master, solitude—had to choose which bed she was going to sleep in, and chose the one nearest the window, and then got into bed and stared at the ceiling, and then decided that they were heavenlily comfortable beds anyway and that was all that mattered, and it was lovely and quiet and that was all that mattered, too. And then she decided that she felt like sleeping, and would probably have a good night and so everything was all right, in fact very nice. And then she realized that it would be a bad thing if she didn't have a good night as she had to be up early in the morning looking for somewhere to live...until at last she put out the light, and turned over, and adjusted the pillow, and hopefully composed her mind for sleep—God help us, God help all of us, every one, all of us."

(I cherish the rightful use of "hopefully.")

I don't think we'll be at Claridge's tonight, but soon we'll be home in our own heavenlily bed. Till then, sleepers.

Against Crispness, II

A reader writes:

Dear Sleeper:

I have to say something heretical. I have a large, dark bedroom that brings to mind the word "hibernation." Since I have other, bright rooms, I've gone with dark, and the room is in earthy colors. The walls are filled with dark wood bookcases full of books. The bed is done in shabby chic-seraglio-cave style, with many non-cheesy animal prints, both pillows (lots) and sheets, as well as 3 (!) heavy down comforters. The sheets are of very fine, silky cotton, very soft, as are the duvet covers. In short, it is a finely tuned, gorgeous mess. The most snuggle-in bed you can imagine. While I deeply appreciate the preference for a crisp, cool, smooth, and precise bed, mine is in an entirely different direction. And apparently I sleep like a baby in it, as I'm never tangled up in the morning!

Yours,
Aulaire

Dear Hibernator:

If there were such a thing as a funhouse of bedrooms, wherein a person could, on any night, dress up as Scheherezade and dive into your finely tuned, gorgeous mess, and on another night get very tired on horseback and lie down on a felt blanket in a leather jacket next to a saguaro, with soughing sounds on the noise machine or even an actual Appaloosa whinnying, I would subscribe. Wait. Why is there no such place? And why am I not its design consultant?

All this is to say, there are logical reasons for landing in this kind of milieu; like many, you simply were taken from the nest too soon, and your lot is to recreate it, in various ways, for the rest of your life. On the 1,001th night in your bedroom, you might find yourself freighted with the obligation to accessorize. If that happens, or if you're not actually living on an ice floe, you can always get a mosquito net, a lighter blanket, white linens, and transform yourself yet again. The theatrical boudoir is a responsibility. The sleepwear. The air-conditioning bill. I like to sleep under a lot of weight, but I'm not sure three down comforters is entirely sustainable.

Still, if you're finding enough co-sleepers to co-star, and you're stocked up on ambergris and snacks, and the sleep is as good as you say — that's the main thing — then follow your daemon! I am in favor of gem-colored rooms and the soft and luxurious bed. If you have never visited ABC Carpet & Home, in Manhattan, go immediately. You might be able to hide out for days in an opium bed or a giant Mughal swing under a mink blanket before the staff discovers you.

Sweet dreams,
Sleeper

There's No Way to Neatly Fold a Fitted Sheet, So Give Up or Haul Your Linens to the Laundress

Fitted sheets are the tectonic plates of the linen closet, just waiting to cause a fatal slide when you open the door. Callalillie's cat (above) gives a heartbreakingly confident folding lesson here, but it doesn't work, exactly.

How do the girls at the laundromat do it? Soon I will infiltrate the premises of Bleach House with my clever fabric softener camera.
— Wait. My sample (twin) sheet somehow has arranged itself into a facsimile of Callalillie's finished product. Not bad, but I couldn't pull it off again, and especially with a queen, and maybe I don't care.

Martha doesn't use fitted sheets. Oh yes, she says, if you must be so postwar-shortcut about things, here, at least don't make a balled-up mess of your elastic-and-cotton-blend [cotton blend!], here, have some incomprehensible folderol.

Speaking of the war, I bet I know who folds fitted sheets flat and perfectly.