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.
