JCS about 1/3 done

Here is the progress I have made. This is really a lot of fun to work. It's easy to see how the stitcher could use the motifs. The bands above Adam and Eve would look good on the placket of a peasant blouse. Adam & Eve are more animated than in most designs & I grew quite fond of them while I was working on the motif.

JCS

JCS I fell in love with this sampler. It was really meant to be rolled up and kept in a needlework basket. The designs are random and the peacock and Lamb are upside down if Adam & Eve are upright. Band samplers and letters are at right angles to the bottom. I got this one from The Scarlet Letter. It was made in Thuringia in 1707 and is now in the German Sampler Museum in Celle, Germany.

Be Not Weary in Well Doing

This is a combination of the house sampler and the sample bands a young girl would collect to use as trimming on garments. This could be displayed or rolled up in a sewing basket to use as a pattern. This one is done in Danish Flower Thread and it is still my favorite for samplers. The rounded thread stands up on the linen and gives it a fuller look.

The Dead a Tear

The verse for this sampler reads: "Absent or Dead Still let A friend be dear A Sigh the absent claim, The Dead a Tear." I made the sampler during a time of mourning for the loss of a family very dear to me who were killed in an airplane crash. Making the sampler helped with the greiving but I am not sure why. I do have some ideas though.

First, I chose this verse from a book of sampler verses by Bolton & Coe. These two ladies went through thousands of samplers and wrote down the verses and where they first appeared. It is one of the best books on samplers that I have seen. You can't really understand the function of samplers in the rearing of young girls unless you read a wide variety of sampler verses. One of the most common threads is the brevity of life. Most of the sampler workers saw death as a constant companion. They were instructed by their mothers or teachers to adapt heavenly values because life could end quickly and it so often did. The sampler verses were designed to instill virtures, or at least make the young needleworker aware of them.

So, why did working on this sampler help me with my grief? The family was what you might call a perfect family. They were living as admirable a life as I think anyone would aspire to. They were good citizens and church leaders. The girls were popular and good students. They had so many friends who loved them dearly and yet, suddenly, they were gone. They were the kind of people that nothing bad should have happened to and the very worst happened. I had to put that into perspective and picking out the verse helped. I read so many verses and saw what a frequent companion death was to our ancestors. The verse seems to accept that friends we hold dear might die. They could also move away and the chances were that they would never be seen again on this earth.

Those early settlers from the Old Country knew that they would probably never see their friends or relatives again and yet they left to make a new life for themselves and their children. This began to put death into perspective for me. We move a great deal these days, but we are only an airplane ride away from anyone we want to see. We can call them on the phone easily and now, with cell phones, we don't even have to know where they are. We can still reach them. guess I thought that people whom I loved should always be available to me. It doesn't always work that way.

As I stitched that sampler, I thought about all these things. In a strange way, I felt a kinship with those young girls whose lives were so touched by sorrow. This world is just a temporary place for us. Ever since this sorrow, I've held my friends and family more dearly. I know they can be gone in an instant. In the stitches of this sampler were thousands of memories of my friends that I will always treasure, and a lesson taught to little girls three centuries ago.

Mourning Sampler - Della Brantner Hawn

Mourning Sampler in memory of my paternal grandmother Della Brantner Hawn.

Mourning Samplers

Why did thousands of people, mainly young girls, do mourning samplers in the 1700-1800's? Why do so many of us love them now? I admit that they fascinate me. Some of the verses are terribly morbid, some poetic, all of them filled with pathos.

The picture above is the first mourning sampler I did. I was drawn to it for reasons I don't really understand. I missed my grandmother who had died a few years before I did this sampler. She was an important person to me and she was gone. Life had gone on without her as it always does, but I wanted to bring her along. Somehow working on this sampler and hanging it on my wall was a way of making a part of our lives. There was a link that people could see between a previous generation and me.

Working on it also brought me closer to my feelings about the loss of my grandmother. I was afraid of death. I couldn't stand the thought of it and avoided even the discussion of it. When my grandmother was dying, I told myself that she had lived a long and full life. She had stayed in her home until the month she died. I had seen her recently and had a good visit. I had been there when she was in the hospital and said my good-bys. It wasn't going to get any easier than this and I had to face it. It was time to grow up. I did, and the sampler helped. As I stitched the piece, I thought about the good things in our relationship. I thought about how lucky I was. The girl who made the original sampler dealt with a lot more death than I would in the 20th century. How many siblings had she lost? Did she even make it to maturity?

I'm sure that there are a lot of reasons for making these samplers. It was the response of a nation when our first president and leader, George Washington died. Thousands of samplers were made to honor him and to deal with the grief. More about that in the next blog.

Thank you, Ancestors

I like to do some research on a sampler style and then I pick one of my ancestors and include that person's name. After getting into genealogy, I realized that I had so many ancestors who came to the US when life was primitive. They emigrated because they wanted land and a better life for their descendants. Many came here for religious freedom. They were willing to undergo hardship for their convictions. Most knew that they would never reap the rewards themselves, but they did it for their children. The more I learned the more I wanted to honor these people, so I decided that I would make my samplers as a tribute to them. Some of these samplers I design and some are reproductions or in a particular style.

Most of my ancestors were here before the American Revolution. That meant that they endured a harrowing 4-6 month journey across the ocean, and there was very little here when they reached these shores...if they survived. I may have had a wealthy ancestor here or there, but most of my ancestors were small landowners. Their houses were built with wood they chopped. The food they ate was raised by them. Life was fraught with danger. There is a record in the church in Rhode Island that my ancestors went to. A couple was killed by Indians while they were on the way to church. My ancestors were there when it happened. Scary, isn't it?

Although these samplers are a tribute to these women, I have to be careful to stitch the tribute in such a way as to not confuse sampler collectors 100 years from now. Can you imagine what a chore it would be to date such a sampler? They'd have 21st century fabric and thread and a date of 1700. The more I learn about samplers, the more I learn about my ancestors..and about myself.

Dutch Sampler I

Dutch Sampler I: This was a very easy sampler and a lot of fun to work. The motifs are taken from German and Dutch samplers and was published in a McCalls magazine. I have a companion piece I hope to finish this year.

No Winter in Thy Year

This was a fun sampler based on the house samplers a young girl my stitch in the beginning of her education. I could just see a young girl working on this. She would have loved putting in the dogs and cats. What about that little squirrel looking thing just outside the yard? It gives me the feeling that these samplers might have been a lot of fun for young girls as well as a means of education.

1663

1663 This is a sampler I hope to get to this year. It is a typical Dutch sampler with sample bands on the left and the names of friends and family around the borders.

The Kingdom of God

This is a sample of the two column sampler. I plan to use this format for a genealogy sampler.

Sea of Time

In honor of Elizabeth Upshur Bowdion

Elizabeth Gelderner

This sampler I designed to honor my 6th great gradmother who was born in Holland about 1772. She married Adam Staats 28 August 1744 in New York. I chose motifs from old Dutch samplers and put her initials and mine in the center.

Mary Trimble 1812

Mary Trimble made a sampler similar to this in 1812 when she was 8 years old. I tried to make a faithful reproduction but there were too many areas where I could not follow her pattern. I decided to make a sampler that was based on her sampler instead.

Mourning the Smart Family

My design: Mourning the Smart Family. This was made to coordinate with the Joanne Harvey sampler and as a memorial to dear friends who were killed in an airplane crash.

Joanne Harvey Sampler

Joanne Harvey Sampler

Mourning September 11

Mourning those who died September 11

Mourning President Reagan

Some of my favorite Samplers

We've Only Just Begun!

Just give me a needle and I'll be happy! That includes knitting needles, tapestry needles, sewing needles, embroidery needles, betweens, cross-stitch needles and crochet hooks. If you can do it with a needle, I love it.

I think better with my needles in hand. If I have to plan for a party or dinner or holiday, I head for my knitting chair and grab whatever is in progress. If you "needle" you know that this is not a waste of time. My needles help me think. They relax my mind until is is smooth as glass and pretty soon things start to come slowly to the top. I have my planner by my side and jot down what ever burbles forth.

Whether I am wound up, exhausted or wounded, my needles smooth the waters until life gets back on track again. The busier I am, the more I need my needles. There is this Zen thing...or maybe Yoga for the brain. When life unravels, my needles bring back order.