I love old samplers and when I was younger I always used to pester my mum to take me to Bankfield Museum to look at the three large samplers they have there. I loved one of them particularly because it was sewn by a young girl, 11 years old I think, and it was beautifully intricate, I think I aspired to do the same... I also loved the verses they embroidered on the sampler, often about life and death; one of the samplers was a list of everyone who had died in the unnamed lady's family. I found that intriguing. I'm really interested in the social history of these pieces, the lives of the women who made them, the beautiful craftsmanship. I'd love to go to the V&A Museum to look at their collection of samplers. One day.
I've made a few samplers of my own, mostly from a pattern and once my own design. That was much more difficult than I anticipated, I lost count of the times I had to unpick and restitch, despite the fact I planned it all on paper first! So this time I'm half following a pattern (it's similar to this) and half improvising with my own designs.
I also decided to pick my own colours, partly because I know how I want it to look, partly because my Grandma gave me all this thread and I feel silly buying more!
And all the sewing things live in this bag, made by my mum before I was born. I like that.
4 comments:
Sarah, I love embroidery as well! And looking at your mom's bag, I can see where you get your wonderful sense of color and design. Isn't it interesting how paper crosses over to fabric so easily?
your sampler is beautiful. i love the history that is in these patterns, the sense of people doing this before you, and at the same time adding your own twist... lovely.
xox
This is so lovely, you do some wonderful craft work.
Thanks all! I really enjoy samplers because there's lots of ltiile finnished bits and it seems to grow quickly by filling 10 minutes here and there. I'd recommend it!
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