another sampler

I never seem to have enough hours in the day to get everything done. I procrastinate too much I know. Today started off well but petered out after dinner when the dishwasher flooded half the kitchen, and the book binding didn't seem to go so well after that, gluey finger prints all over... I have all these ideas in my head but I seem to take so long to start. And the list keeps growing...

Anyway, this sampler, a gift for a friend, took me nearly 2 years to make (with lots of procrastination breaks of course) but I got there in the end...

If a child lives with criticism,
he learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility,
he learns to fight.
If a child lives with ridicule,
he learns to be shy.
If a child lives with shame,
he learns to feel guilty.
If a child lives with tolerance,
he learns to be patient.
If a child lives with encouragement,
he learns confidence.
If a child lives with praise,
he learns to appreciate.
If a child lives with fairness,
he learns justice.
If a child lives with security,
he learns to have faith.
If a child lives with approval,
he learns to like himself.
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship,
he learns to find love in the world

Dorothy Law Nolte

It's harder than it looks designing a sampler; the last two I've done I've spent ages on the computer colouring in pixels on photoshop, moving about the design elements in their separate layers until the whole thing looks right, and then started to sew, having to check back at the computer and count pixels on the screen to follow the pattern.


This time I thought I'd take a more organic approach and just started sewing in the middle of the cloth... I really admire old samplers, done by women and girls to practice their embroidery, learn stitches and sayings and record their family history. I love to visit Bankfield Museum near my parents house and look at the samplers they have on display. I found an old one in an antique shop but it was too much money (I'll just have to make my own...) I think sometimes the design of then looks quite random. Sometimes they don't look like they've followed a pattern but rather just copied elements from other samplers or made shapes up to fit the space they had. So that's what I tried to do...


It was quite liberating when I managed to stop worrying about what should go where. Just picking a motif I liked and making a start. Looking back I wish I had planned it slightly more as it was very hard to find a frame that fit the proportions, and I think maybe I should've centered the text to make it more symmetrical, but all in all I'm happy with how it turned out. And Abbie liked it which is the main thing after all!