How do I sew linen?

Linen is straightforward to sew and unforgiving about two things: shrinkage and fraying.

Prewash it, and consider washing twice. Linen shrinks noticeably on the first wash and often a little more on the second. Wash it as you intend to wash the finished garment, and press it dry before cutting.

Finish every raw edge, immediately. Linen frays more than almost any common woven, and an unfinished allowance will have lost a centimetre by the time you have handled it a few times. Overlock or zigzag the pieces as soon as they are cut, before construction.

Use a universal 80/12 and either cotton or polyester thread. Nothing exotic is needed.

Stitch length around 2.5 mm. Standard settings work.

Press with steam and heat. Linen takes a hot iron better than almost anything and needs it — creases set hard, and a well-pressed linen seam looks entirely different from an unpressed one. Press seams as you sew rather than at the end.

Expect it to crease in wear. That is the fabric, not a fault, and it cannot be sewn out. Choose looser styles that do not fight it.

Cut on grain carefully. Linen has a visible weave and any deviation from the grain shows as a skewed line down a finished garment. Pull a thread across the width to find the true crosswise grain if the cut end is off square.

Flat-felled and French seams suit it, both because they enclose the fraying edge and because they suit the fabric’s character.