Cross Stitch

A sampler, as the name implies, was first intended to be a reference work; on a single piece of cloth, an accomplished needlewoman would preserve her complete repertoire of embroidery patterns, drawnwork, lettering, and fancy stitches. In seventeenth century England, samplers were long and narrow—about eight inches wide and a yard or more in length. Fragments of designs and examples of stitches were scattered over the entire surface. As it was worked, the sampler was rolled up, scroll fashion. It could be tucked away in a chest or a drawer until needed, and unrolled to permit the seamstress to select the proper motif for decorating clothing, chair covers, bed hangings, and cushions.

In the colonies, where small girls received their first (and usually their only) schooling at home, the sampler became a teaching aid with a dual purpose. Having already mastered knitting—by the age of four a little girl was expected to be able to make plain stockings and mittens on long wooden needles—it was vitally important that a child of five should learn to sew. If she could be taught to read at the same time, so much the better. Across the top of a large square of linen, colonial mothers drew the alphabet in capital and small letters, and underneath it, numbers from one to ten. “Great A, little a, Bouncing B . . .” As the time-honored rhyme was repeated, small fingers worked the letters in cross or chain stitch using a large needle and dark worsted thread. Literally, girls learned to sew before they learned to read, but they were not likely to forget either lesson.

As the next step, a “text” was printed in the center of the sampler and worked with smaller needle and finer thread. This text was a quotation from the bible, a moral sentiment, or such an applicable verse as:

Ye springing Fair, whom gently Minds incline
To All that’s Curious, Innocent, and Fine,
Now let the Fingers, whose unrivaled Skill
Exalts the Needle, grace the noble Quill.

Below the text, there usually was room for an embroidered needle-picture; landscapes, houses, and Noah’s Ark were favored subjects. Vines, leaves, flowers, and birds (often worked in silk thread) provided a colorful border as embroidery motifs were practiced. Finally, at the bottom of the composition, the name of its maker and the date of its completion were added—the little girl was often in her teens by this time, the sampler having been her constant companion for several years. The finished product was then framed and hung in a place of prominence on the wall, for a sampler was a sort of diploma as well as a piece of decorative needlework.