A letter from a reader

At 68, my laundry basket has a fringe, two horns, and more admirers than I do

On Tuesday the church flower rota met at my house, which means six women, one teapot, and a schedule that could be settled in ten minutes but takes two hours by tradition. I mention this because of what happened between the tea and the chrysanthemum dispute.

Three separate women came back from my bathroom asking about the laundry basket. The third one, Margaret, held the door open so the other two could see it again, and delivered the line I have been repeating all week.

Pat. There is a Highland cow in your bathroom and it is nicer looking than my three-piece suite.

There is. Here is the answer, written down once, with photographs.

How it happens

First, the situation it replaced. For the better part of a decade my laundry lived in a cracked plastic tub hidden behind the bathroom door, which is where every plastic tub in Britain lives, because they are all too ugly to stand anywhere else. When company came, the door stayed strategically half-closed. That was the system.

And I had assumed, as one does, that this was simply what laundry baskets were. Plastic and hidden, or wicker and snagging your best tights. Pick one and close the door on it.

What I had wrong

Here is what nobody had told me. Somebody has started making laundry baskets the way our grandmothers made quilts, and once you have seen one, the plastic tub’s days are numbered.

The Fiona is a proper quilted basket with a whole stitched scene wrapping the way round it. A shaggy ginger Highland calf with its fringe in its eyes, standing chest-deep in a meadow of raised daisies and poppies, with green hills, little blue mountains and puffy clouds you can actually feel, because every bit of it is quilted and stitched, not printed. It is the difference between a picture of a thing and a made thing, and it reads from right across the landing.

The sensible one is the Fiona

Both baskets in this letter are from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly making the ordinary things a bit lovelier for a few years now.

I should be honest: I did not buy her for the cow. I bought her for the practical things, and the cow was the bonus. She stands upright on her own, empty or full, no slumping into a fabric puddle behind the door. The handles are proper stitched canvas loops, so a full load goes down the stairs on one arm like a shopping bag. She wipes clean. And when we take the caravan out, she folds flat and lies in the boot like a good dog.

The character one is the Milo

A fortnight later, the second one arrived, which surprised nobody in this house.

The Milo is for the grandchildren’s bathroom, and it is a different mood entirely. Eleven little patchwork dogs standing shoulder to shoulder on a mustard yellow ground, like a school photograph where nobody would sit still, every one of them stitched on with swirls of quilting and big hopeful eyes. The grandchildren have claimed one dog each and are in formal negotiations over the rest. Their dirty washing has never been delivered so willingly, which I regard as the basket paying rent.

What happened at the flower rota

The rota meeting established three things. The chrysanthemums are Margaret’s problem this year, the teapot needs rescaling, and every woman in that room now knows where my laundry basket came from, because they asked, one after another, in my own house, about the one item I used to hide.

Since Tuesday the Fiona has done four loads and one trip to the line, and the Milo has received two more dog-name submissions from the grandchildren, both vetoed.

Three things I have learned since

One. A pretty basket gets used. The washing goes IN it now, in both bathrooms. Nobody wants to bury the cow, and the dogs apparently must be fed. The bedroom chairs of this house are chairs again.

Two. Stitched beats printed. The raised quilting is what makes people reach out and touch it, and what makes it read as an heirloom rather than a novelty. A printed version would be a bin with a picture on it.

Three. Buy the sensible one and the character one together. One for your bathroom, one for the grandchildren, visitors ask about both, and the delivery arrives in one go. My only regret is the airing cupboard now looks underdressed.

About the price

I want to be straightforward about this, because it was the thing that made me hesitate, twice.

Each basket starts at £34.95 for the small, £37.95 for the medium and £41.95 for the large, down from up to £80.00. The pair together cost me less than the wicker hamper I nearly bought once, the one that would have eaten my tights.

I did what I imagine you are doing now and went and read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some websites, which if I am honest made me trust it rather more. One woman had written, “Guests keep asking about my laundry basket. My laundry basket. I have had the same sofa for eleven years and nobody has ever mentioned it.” That was the one that decided it.

They are two designs of dozens in the collection, cats, lambs, gardens, seasides, all in the same quilted style, so there will be one that is properly yours.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sat with a pot of tea and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If your laundry basket is something you hide when company comes, stop hiding and rehome it. Get the cow for your bathroom, the dogs for the grandchildren, and enjoy the strange new experience of guests complimenting your laundry arrangements.

Two practical things. They are made to order in runs, there is a sale on now, and once a run has gone, it has gone until the next one. Each design comes in three sizes, small to family-load large.

I hid a plastic tub for ten years. Now there is a cow in my bathroom and I hold the door open myself.

Patricia