I have an amazing story to tell you about using linen in your quilts.
About 1780 or earlier in Hanover County, Virginia (outside Richmond), a young lady named Martha Frances Dabney made a stunning quilt using cotton "chintzes" from England. These fabrics were cherished and expensive (the handwritten note attached to the quilt by her great grand daughter stated that they "cost $12 in those days") and were used in small amounts in this quilt. [Perhaps they were leftovers from dresses and other home furnishings.
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Martha lived at a time when many landed (and, unfortunately, slave-owning) Virginia families raised flax for rotating among their crops. From flax, linen was spun and woven for many of their fabric requirements. (This is where we get the term "homespun", which occurred when the Colonists began the 'non-consumption movement' and rebelled against the taxes and purchase restrictions for fabrics and other goods placed upon them by the English government.)
She used a homegrown linen as the background and backing fabric in her 86" x 86" pieced quilt. This linen was unbleached, a natural ecru/sand color. Though some of the English "chintzes" in this quilt have degraded because of the iron mordants used to set the dyes in them, the linen is still in perfect shape. It is believed that even the thread used in this quilt perhaps was linen.
The quilt now lives at the textile museum of Colonial Williamsburg, where it is stored in light, temperature and humidity controlled environment with a "sister" quilt of similar age, construction, and color, but without the provenance (written family history) Martha's quilt has.
Martha Frances Dabney married Thomas Collier who had been born at "Portobello" plantation, Yorktown, VA, (which is now the secretive Camp Peary right across from the main entrance to Williamsburg, Virginia). Thomas Collier and his wife Martha Dabney gave their names to three generations of Dabney Colliers, including my brother, father, and great-grandfather, and from whom I get part of my last name.
Go right ahead and use linen in your quilt; you’ll be in fine, venerated quilting company!
Jan in VA