Sampler...

I was absolutely shocked and thrilled by a couple of happy surprises at the thrift this week in the form of Samplers...

Actually, I was kind of blown away to look down on a small chair and find these little sweeties all folded and waiting for a bit of recognition...and still hold fast to the story that one day someone will find me fainted dead away with something clutched to my chest in the middle of the Thrift. I immediately recognized these textiles, but was also a little suspect. It's not every day that I run across a sampler to buy...as they are a quite old form of handiwork...but as it happened I grew up with several hanging on the walls of my family home, I snatched picked these up happily for myself.

Or my mother...
I can't quite decide who's home these will eventually reside in.


I took them over to my mother's home last night for a bit of authentication...and in her Sampler wisdom she believes they are probably European. European Samplers may not be as rare as American Samplers, but we decided that since one is actually dated 1858, that I shall frame them so they may be displayed properly no matter where they happen to find a home.

I think that something that is approximately 152 years old deserves no less.

Truth be told, I have never been as enamored with primitive things as much as my mother is...but the older and wiser (ahem) I get, and the more I do my own handiwork, I have come to appreciate the kind of amazing quality of work that went into the things that people made before mass marketing. Samplers were just that...a sample of what you could do. Each one is amazing and different in it's own way since they were created by the person who was embroidering them. Most I have seen have alphabets (these one's are each missing the letter J and there are 2 alphabets that are missing W X Y and Z...I have no idea why this is, but there you go) which is the single reason I even recognized what these could be. I remember that my mother also had one that showed examples of ways to patch holes in cloth and I believe there were some buttons sewn on there as well...cut work and several unique stitches...with some samplers being extremely ornate and some being very plain.

Samplers are beautiful and personal artwork made by the women and young women of each era, and since they are so varied and different, you can ususally find something to completely swoon over on each and every one you see...my mother happily ran her hands over these cloths and sighed while saying, "I just love the flowers."

The larger of the two and the one that is dated in beadwork (which my mother has never seen) also has the initials L G on it...and has the most amazing samples of handiwork done in wool thread...which we thought is very close to some sort of crewel work. If you could see up close you would notice that the work is so fine and incredible it could make your head swim. It is only slightly stained and has a lovely finished border which surrounds it.

The smaller of the two had my mother a bit stymied as it seems to have been done on a fabric scrap...which she decided made sense, but it is only finished off on 3 of the sides...it almost reminds me of a tea towel because it's worked on the very bottom half of the fabric. It seems much more basic and primitive when compared to the other one...We both loved the little animal on the bottom which looks to have something hanging from its mouth, but have no idea what it could be seeing as it seems to be missing its ears...and my mother decided since it was done in counted cross stitch that it would have made her crazy to attempt to do it herself.

My mother is an accomplished embroiderer, quilter, spinner, and hand maker herself and has taught me to do such things starting at a very young age (I think my first embroidered piece...which I still have and should be framed and hung with these was done around age 5) We spent many happy nights in my youth hunkered down working on individual pieces...so when my mother thinks something would drive her nuts...she's not whistling Dixie.

Secretly? I never thought I would have a chance to buy a sampler that I could afford, so I put it right out of my head as a must have...I am honored to be the guardian of these to Samplers now and I am starting to think that these might just look pretty darned nice hanging in the studio...