Let’s say each week you eat six breakfasts, five dinners and two lunches at home. That’s 676 paper napkins a year, or 2,704 for a family of four.

That sounds dramatic, but the cost savings from switching to cloth would be only about $40 a year for that family of four (based on a price of $1.50 for 100 napkins).

So why were tabletop textiles so hot in chilly San Francisco at the recent Gourmet Show, a culinary and housewares trade fair?

And why have two stylish new books come out this year on, of all topics, laundry? “The Clothesline” by Irene Rawlings and Andrea Van Steenhouse (Gibbs Smith, $21.95) and “Laundry” by Monica Nassif (Chronicle Books, $17) spend pages and pages on hand washing, ironing and treating stains in heirloom and new linens.

Retailers say protecting the planet is only a small part of the big return of linen napkins, jacquard tablecloths and flour-sack towels. Sure, consumers are trying to use fewer paper napkins and paper towels.

But that’s not the main reason they are embracing cloth like never before, says Louise Meyers, owner of Pryde’s Old Westport in Kansas City, Mo. “The No. 1 reason is it’s a little more civilized.”

After all, says Meyers, who has four children, dinner is the only time most family members are all together. So the dinner table is a good place to expose children to rules of etiquette and behavior they will need later in life.

And dressing up the table is hardly torture for little ones. Children think cloth napkins are fun, Meyers says.

Judy Brown of Leawood, Kan., agrees. The retired elementary school teacher, who has 80 to 100 new and vintage napkins, says her three grandchildren really enjoy them, “especially the colorful ones or the ones that have designs.” Brown estimates that she and her husband use cloth napkins “99 percent of the time.”

Switching to cloth doesn’t have to be expensive. Brown finds napkins at antique stores and flea markets, sometimes for as little as 50 cents each.

Another advantage of vintage napkins is that they come in different sizes and work well for uses other than the intended ones. Take cocktail napkins, which were popular in the 1940s and “50s before they got muscled out by coasters. The postcard-sized linens, which often have fun, embroidered motifs, are just the right size for a light breakfast or TV snack.

Tea or luncheon napkins, ranging from 8 to 12 inches square, are perfect for takeout, dessert and picnics.

Serious dinner napkins are 20, 22 sometimes even 24 inches square.

Dinner napkins also are well-suited for decorative folding. (Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble each have six to eight current titles on the topic.)

The newest thing in tablecloths at Sur La Table (www.surlatable.com) is terry tablecloths made by Ritz, a company that makes basic kitchen towels. Unlike linen or vintage printed cotton cloths, terry tablecloths can take abuse at the table and in the washer.

A new twist on old themes won the Red and White Kitchen Co. of Mount Kisco, N.Y., plenty of attention at the Gourmet Show. Its stand was hung with new, 100 percent cotton tablecloths printed with vintage motifs, including a map of the Western states, a cowboy and a cowgirl.

There were also new towels straight out of grandma’s kitchen; “Cake Lady” was the biggest hit. Of another crowd-pleaser, co-owner Carol Siegel says, “We caved and did a cherry design.”

Nassif, author of Laundry and president of Caldrea, a Minneapolis company that makes aromatherapy cleaning products, says the desire to return to old traditions such as linen napkins and tea towels has three roots.

People are entertaining more at home. Small rituals are becoming more important in everyday life. And the laundry room is the last room in the house to be reinvented.

“People already have the gourmet kitchen, the spa bath, the media room,” Nassif says.

And a fabulous laundry room, with chairs and stereo sound, doesn’t make sense if you’re not doing any laundry. Build it and they will wash – hmmmm.

Towels

Three types of towels every kitchen needs:

• Bar mops, thick white towels like restaurants use, are great for wiping spills. They can be presoaked in a bucket with a mild bleach water solution. Too much bleach will turn the towels into pulp. From $2 each.

• Woven cotton kitchen towels are great for drying hands or dishes. Polyester blends are cheaper but don’t work well. They don’t absorb well, and you can’t get oil stains out of them. Launder as usual with like-colored clothes. From $8.

• Linen towels are great for drying glassware. They don’t leave lint and are thin enough to get into the bottoms of long glasses. Spot-treat stains, then wash in cold water. Don’t overdry. They last for years with proper care. From $12.

The fine details

• Jacquard: A fabric with a patterned weave, named after the French inventor who designed the loom it is made on.

• Damask: A durable, lustrous, reversible fabric (usually silk or linen) with a patterned weave.

• Openwork: Ornamental embroidered openings in fabric, often formed by pulling threads.

• Cutwork: Ornamental openwork embroidery in which part of the fabric has been cut away.

• Hemstich: An ornamental stitch used at the hem made by pulling out several parallel threads and tying the cross threads together into small, even bunches.

• Tatting: Fine lace edging made by looping and knotting thread around a small hand-held shuttle.