Linen cloth, such as this Off White, Dark Gold, & Yellow Striped Linen, was woven of flax fiber in many grades and weaves. Used in every aspect of living, from clothing, to household needs, to furnishings, to the shroud made for the corpse, linen was so common that a tax was proposed as a source of easy revenue on the coarser sorts being imported into the US towards the end of the 18th century.
Woven stripes were a common way of introducing color and pattern into textiles inexpensively as color could be introduced with a linen yarn or, in the case of many Manchester goods, with a cotton yarn. The stripes could be introduced using the warp yarns or the weft yarns.
