This is a reproduction of an English sampler that features a four-sided carnation border, centering many intricate organic petit point motifs. The large mansion house dominates the central reserve, standing above an extensive pasture occupied by two very large and cockeyed sheep. These imaginative... Read more
Note from the designer - "Elizabeth Mansfield finished her sampler in England on 13th June 1792, during the reign of King George III (1760-1820: note the cushioned crown in the upper third, marked on either side by the initials G R for George Rex). The original sampler was stitched on a very... Read more
According to a note attached to the back of the original sampler, it was probably made near Newtown, Pennsylvania. The attribution at the center is surrounded by a typical Quaker leafy cartouche with opposing flowers and facing birds above. Other characteristic Quaker motifs include eight point... Read more
Note from the designer: "This band sampler was designed after a piece in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum, most remarkable for the colorful, solidly filled geometric and floral sections. It also features double running stitch sections found on Italian embroideries of the sixteenth and... Read more
Note from the designer: "A Pennsylvania German sampler that may not be, strictly speaking, a miniature, but is nonetheless small for its type. Typical Pennsylvania German folk culture motifs - birds, trees, hearts, flowers, crowns and stars - adorn it."
This English sampler combines embroidered pictorial, alphabetic, and upholstery techniques, becoming in every sense a sampler of Ms. Topham's best work. Bargello work (also known as canvaswork, Irish stitch, flamestitch, or Florentine stitch) appeared on the earliest seventeenth century samplers,... Read more
Note from the designer: "Adapted from a mid eighteenth century English sampler. The combination of several unusual stitch techniques with bold primary colors, makes this sampler outstandingly beautiful and a rewarding project to stitch.
While the majority is done in cross stitch, large... Read more
The Temperance Movement of the early nineteenth century began in the United States prior to 1808. Preachers, most notably John Bartholomew Gough, promulgated a pledge of abstinence from members of his congregation. While temperance efforts have existed as long as spirits have, the movement was not... Read more
Note from the designer: "A gift from the collection of Rosalind and Edwin Miller to the museum. Emma Lerch was born in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, in 1830, and she stitched this sampler in her thirteenth year. It is a very simple work, with a lovely meandering floral border. While perhaps... Read more
Band samplers of the 17th century exhibit the widest range of stitches and techniques. Counted thread stitches on linen were artfully combined with panels of floral, geometric, or figural cut and drawn work- a technique where the background threads of linen are carefully bound, then cut and pulled... Read more
Note from the designer: "This northern German sampler consists of random symbolic spot motifs, with a simple zigzag border. Religious symbols are commonly found on continental samplers. On this example, we find the wreath carried by angels (the wreath as a symbol for eternal life): the ship... Read more
This sweet little American sampler features two little houses above alphabets and a short verse:
Would you be wise
Each moment prize
It is surrounded on four sides by a double sided satin stitched sawtooth border. Stitches used include cross, outline, stem filling, counted... Read more
Note from the designer: "Our own original design created in collaboration with Terry Meinke, draws upon the needlework traditions of two centuries, in both England and America. The idyllic landscape and more naturalistic figures (as opposed to the blocky shapes of later figures on American... Read more
Note from the designer: "Who would love this world or prize whats in it
that gives and takes and chops and changes every minute.
This brilliant English traditional band sampler comes from the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum. Drawing on traditional sampler motifs of the 17th... Read more
"Jesus permit thy Gracious name to stand as the first effort of an infant hand. And while her fingers on the canvas move, engage her tender thoughts to seek thy love. With thy dear children, let her have a part and write thy name thyself upon her heart."
Note from the designer: "From Dover, Massachusetts, comes Harriot Boardman's sampler, originally worked on a distinctive green linsey-woolsey found only on some North Shore samplers. A three-sided sawtooth border surrounds alphabet and numeral tests with geometric cross bands, two deer with... Read more
Note from the designer: "This original design blends a mid-18th century floral sampler border with a late 18th century lettering and cartouche style, and a mid-19th century sentiment. Instructions are provided for working the sampler in a different color scheme (red, blues, greens) on a neutral... Read more
This sampler was made in Scotland and includes many of the traditional motifs associated with samplermaking in this region. Firstly, Janet has included many initials of family members. However the initials at the center- G R 3 -refer to the then-reigning monarch, King George III. The flowering... Read more
Note from the designer: "This small and brilliantly preserved band sampler demonstrates a wide variety of stitches found on many seventeenth century samplers. The beautifully shaded flower heads and leaves are filled in with connecting tiers of trellis stitch."
Rose's unusual middle name should have provided some clues about where she was born, and where she lived, but the name "Shenamon" is elusive despite my efforts to discover its origins as well as hers. It is spelled many different ways when researched (including Shinimon and Schinnamon which... Read more
Agnes Binnie was born in Stirlingshire, Scotland, on March 22, 1808, to Robert Binnie and Mary Addie. She married James Barclay on March 16, 1832, in Falkirk, Stirlingshire. The couple had at least six sons and three daughters. Around 1870 they emigrated to Scotland Township in McDonough, Illinois.... Read more
The original Scottish antique sampler had never been framed and so it was in excellent condition with the same vibrant, unfaded colors on the front as well as on the back. An unusual, elaborate four-sided undulating floral and leaf border surrounds a central reserve with a brief moral verse. Adam... Read more
This design was excerpted from the top of an early nineteenth-century English sampler. It features an unusual and amusing hunting scene with a solo hunter on horseback pursuing a single hapless stag with a pack of ten spotted hounds on its trail.
The verse reads:
Give me O Lord thy early... Read more
This is a reproduction of a Quaker sampler made in Chester County, Pennsylvania consisting of alphabets, numerals, ligatures* and lineal patterns executed in a variety of stitches. The uppermost border with the dangling central flower is often seen on American Quaker samplers of this period (see... Read more
A sampler from the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England.
Skill and expertise in sampler-making did not necessarily peak in the mid-to-late seventeenth century and then wane during what is often called the "golden age" of English sampler-making. These skills... Read more
This amazing, unprecedented English sampler illustrates so many unique and bold elements of design, stitched in a balanced way inside a four-sided strawberry border. In all my decades of study I've never seen an antique sampler with quite this much bizarre personality.
This is an expansive English sampler with an unusual four-sided leafy branch and floral border, centering a very busy reserve filled with baskets of fruits and flowers, stylized trees and plants, birds, lions rampant, butterflies, rabbits, and stags. A large building/mansion/institution is at the... Read more
Here is a dainty and colorful mid-eighteenth-century English sampler executed entirely in cross and petit point stitches making it a suitable project for any skill level.
A four-sided arcaded border of daisies and dianthus surrounds three pious verses with delicate horizontal floral bands... Read more
The canvaswork piece from which this bell pull was derived is a book cover, and dates to the first quarter of the 17th century. square tent stitched vignettes, reproduced here in the panels of the bell pull covered the book's spine vertically. It seems appropriate that the allegorical figures of... Read more
This extraordinary piece of seventeenth century needlework was originally executed with fine silks on a linen ground, in tent stitch, and is composed of many different slips" or spot motifs, cleverly fitted together. Many of these motifs have symbolic and/or heraldic significance, and they can... Read more