A tablecloth that cannot take a stain is a tablecloth for nobody. A finished edge is not decoration; it is how the piece survives the wash. Cloth should be long enough to sit in a person’s lap — the original point of the thing.
Ivory, flax, olive — colours that recede behind food. We do not make a tablecloth that competes with a peach. Napkins should be large enough to actually use.
Set the table. Leave it up. Linen looks more like itself at noon the next day than it did when you first laid it down.