Bedding vocabulary is regional, and the internet is not. The same item is a duvet cover in London, a quilt cover in Melbourne and a doona cover two suburbs over; the panel that hides a bed base is a bed skirt in Chicago and a valance in Leeds. Add the words that only appear inside a size selector — flange, deck, drop, pocket depth — and it is easy to order the wrong thing while being perfectly precise about it.
This page defines every term the shop uses, in the order you would look them up. Where we have written a full guide, the entry is short and points at it.
The same item, four names
These are the names you are most likely to meet, not the only correct ones. The first column is what you will see on our size selectors.
| What we call it | United States | United Kingdom | Australia and NZ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duvet cover | Duvet cover | Duvet cover | Quilt cover, doona cover |
| Bed skirt | Bed skirt, dust ruffle | Valance, valance sheet | Valance, bed skirt |
| Housewife pillowcase | Pillowcase, standard case | Housewife pillowcase | Pillow slip |
| Oxford pillowcase | Pillow sham | Oxford pillowcase | Oxford pillowcase |
| Flat sheet | Flat sheet, top sheet | Flat sheet | Flat sheet |
| Square pillowcase | Euro sham | Continental pillowcase | European pillowcase |
The dimensions differ as well as the names, and that is the part that costs money. A UK king duvet cover and a US king duvet cover are not the same panel. The linen bedding size guide has the conversion tables, all of them generated from what the selectors actually sell.
A to Z
- Bed skirt
- The panel that hangs from the base of the bed and hides the frame, the box spring and whatever is under it. Called a valance in Britain and a dust ruffle in parts of the US. Ours attach by lying on the box spring under the mattress — see the linen bed skirt guide.
- Body pillow
- A long bolster pillow. We list a 20 × 54 in case for it among the pillowcase sizes.
- Boudoir
- A small decorative pillow, 12 × 16 in, used in front of the sleeping pillows. Sometimes called a travel or breakfast pillow.
- Comforter
- American for a quilted bed covering with the filling sewn in. It is not a duvet and does not take a cover, so an American shopper looking for a duvet cover wants the duvet — the loose insert — not a comforter. We make covers, not fillings.
- Coverlet
- A thin woven bedspread, used over a duvet or on its own in summer. We do not make one; if you found this page looking for a linen coverlet, the closest thing we sell is a flat sheet in a size up from your bed.
- Cut and sewn
- What we do, and it is worth being exact about it. The cloth is woven in Europe; we buy it by the roll, then cut and sew every piece to order in our workshop near Riga. We are not a mill and we do not weave our own fabric.
- Deck
- The flat center panel of a bed skirt — the part that carries no fabric fall and is never seen. It lies on the box spring and the mattress holds it down, which is why our bed skirts need no ties and no elastic.
- Doona cover
- Australian for a duvet cover. Doona is a genericized brand name, the way Biro is for a pen. Order by the Australian sizes.
- Drop
- The vertical fall of a bed skirt, measured from the top of the box spring to the floor — not from the top of the mattress. Getting this wrong is the single most common bed skirt error, so the bed skirt guide walks through the measurement.
- Dust ruffle
- The same thing as a bed skirt, with the implication of a gathered rather than a tailored edge. In our selector the difference is the pleat style, not the name.
- Duvet
- The insert itself: the filled quilt that goes inside the cover. We do not sell duvets, only the covers for them.
- Duvet cover
- The washable case a duvet goes inside, closed with buttons at the foot. Ordered by the duvet's dimensions, not the bed's — a common and expensive confusion, because a 200 × 200 cm duvet goes on beds of several widths. All of them are on linen duvet covers.
- European pillowcase (Euro)
- A size rather than a style: the square case. US Euro is 26 × 26 in; the European squares we cut are 65 × 65 cm and 70 × 70 cm. Available as housewife or Oxford, and used for the propping-up pillows at the back of a made bed rather than for sleeping.
- Fitted sheet
- The bottom sheet, with elasticated corners that grip the mattress. Ordered by mattress size and pocket depth — see below. Ours are on linen fitted sheets.
- Flange
- The flat border of fabric sewn around the opening of an Oxford pillowcase, 5 cm / 2 in on ours. It is decorative and it is additional to the listed size: a 20 × 26 in Oxford case fits a 20 × 26 in pillow and measures larger than that overall.
- Flat sheet
- The unfitted sheet that goes between you and the duvet, called a top sheet in the US. Widely used in America, largely skipped in Europe, where the duvet cover does the job on its own — which is why ours are cut to US sizes only. On linen flat sheets.
- Flax
- The plant. Linen is the fabric made from its stem fibers — flax is to linen what a grape is to wine, and "flax linen" is a shop's way of saying linen twice.
- Frill and ruffle
- Gathered edge treatments on a pillowcase, sitting in the same decorative role as an Oxford flange. We sew a 3 in frill, a deeper 6 in ruffle, and a doubled version combining a 1 in and a 6 in ruffle. As with the flange, the listed size is the pillow; the ruffle is extra to it.
- Greige
- Cloth in its loom state, before bleaching or dyeing — the name is gray and beige run together. Worth knowing because it is often confused with our oatmeal, which is not greige: it is a mélange spun from bleached white and gray yarn.
- GSM
- Grams per square meter — the weight of the cloth, and the number that does for linen what thread count pretends to do for cotton. Ours is 170 GSM throughout. What that means in practice.
- Housewife pillowcase
- The plain rectangular case with no border, closed by an internal flap. The default everywhere; the name is British and is simply what an unbordered case is called. Compared with the Oxford here.
- Linen
- Fabric woven from flax. Confusingly, "linens" in the plural is a household category that includes cotton sheets and polyester ones — which is why a hotel supplier's "linens" are usually not linen. Everything we make is the real fiber.
- Lumbar
- A long, low decorative pillow that sits at the small of the back, 14 × 36 in in our sizes.
- Mélange
- A yarn spun from fibers of more than one color, so the color lives in the thread rather than in a dye bath applied afterwards. Our oatmeal is one.
- OEKO-TEX Standard 100
- A textile certification: every component tested and cleared for harmful substances. Ours covers the fabric and the sewing thread. Buttons are sourced separately and are not part of that certificate — a distinction most shops leave vague.
- Oxford pillowcase
- A case with a flat sewn border around the edge. Called a pillow sham in the US when it is purely decorative. Which to choose.
- Pillow slip
- Australian and informal British for a housewife pillowcase. The same item.
- Pocket depth
- How deep the corner of a fitted sheet is, and therefore the thickest mattress it will stay on. We cut from 8 to 22 in / 20 to 55 cm. Measure your mattress including any topper before ordering: a sheet cut for a 10 in mattress will not stay on a 16 in one.
- Quilt cover
- Australian and New Zealand for a duvet cover. It does not cover a quilt in the patchwork sense, and we do not sell quilts. Order from the Australian column of the size guide.
- Sham
- US usage for a decorative pillowcase, usually flanged, often used on pillows that are removed at night. Closest to our Oxford.
- Sheet set
- Several pieces bought together at one price. What is in the set varies by size, so the size selector on each sheet set lists the exact pieces rather than us describing a set that may not be the one you picked.
- Split corners
- A bed skirt cut so that the fabric is open at the corners instead of continuous — necessary for a four-poster or any bed with corner posts. One of four styles we offer, alongside the choice of pleats or no pleats.
- Thread count
- Threads per square inch. A meaningful number for cotton and a misleading one for linen, whose yarn is thicker and whose count is therefore always lower. Compare GSM instead.
- Valance
- British for a bed skirt. A "valance sheet" is the version built onto a fitted sheet; ours are separate panels, which means they can be washed on their own schedule.
Where to go next
The guides that go deeper: sizes, pillowcase styles, bed skirts, GSM, the oatmeal color, shrinkage, napkin sizes, linen against cotton and the care guide. They are all listed on linen guides.
Or start from what you need: bedding, duvet covers, pillowcases, fitted sheets, flat sheets, sheet sets, bed skirts, napkins and the rest of the table linen.
Common questions
Is a quilt cover the same as a duvet cover?
Yes. Quilt cover is the Australian and New Zealand name, doona cover is the informal one, and duvet cover is used in Britain and America. The item is identical; only the size charts differ, so order from the Australian column rather than converting by eye.
Do you sell the duvet itself, or only the cover?
Only the cover. We make cases, sheets, skirts and table linen — no duvets, pillows, comforters or quilts. If you need a cover for a duvet you already own, measure the duvet rather than the bed.
What is the flange on a pillowcase?
The flat sewn border around an Oxford case, 5 cm / 2 in wide on ours. It is additional to the listed size: the measurement on the selector is the pillow that fits inside, never the finished case.
What does "deck" mean on a bed skirt?
The flat middle panel that sits on the box spring under the mattress, out of sight. It is what holds the skirt in place, which is why ours need no ties, no elastic and no pinning.
Is a coverlet or a quilt something you make?
No. We sew flat sheets, fitted sheets, duvet covers, pillowcases, bed skirts and table linen. A linen flat sheet one size up from your bed is the nearest thing to a summer coverlet in our range.
Why does the same bed size have different names in different countries?
Because the beds genuinely differ. A king mattress is 76 × 80 in in the United States and 183 × 203 cm in Australia, and across the four markets we cut for, the word "king" names seven different duvet covers. It is not a translation problem and no conversion chart fixes it — order by the measurement, from the size guide.