SOME BLACKWORK SAMPLERS

Had wanted to post yesterday, but my neighbor Bev from across the street wanted to use my long arm machine to quilt a sampler quilt of hers. She had been asking for a long time, and I always had a quilt on the machine. Finally finished one and called her to come over. She wanted to use a pantograph which is a quilting design printed on a long sheet of paper. You follow the pattern from side to side with a tiny laser light hooked to the machine. We worked on pinning her backing fabric to the leaders with corsage pins and laying out the batting and finally the top. Got one row of stitching done, and I had a brain freeze as to how to position the laser for the second row so that they would over lap a bit. It was about 4 pm by then so we stopped. Went down to my "quilting room" in the basement just now and looked at it again and found the answer right away. Shows you need to take a break some times and the answer to your problem will come to you!

MSI SAMPLER—Elizabeth Bayles 173?
I will try to talk about a sampler from the former Carrie B. Neely Collection at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago on each of my blogs. We are starting our journey by the date of the sampler—the oldest ones first.

Elizabeth Bayles didn't have enough room to stitch the exact year when she finished her sampler! Look at the very bottom after her name. She says 173 blank. This sampler was originally appraised at $14 probably because of its age as it is not a remarkable sampler. It was stitched on 42 count linen with silk thread and measures 8" x 16." It is cross stitch only. In 1998 it sold for 690 pounds in a group of two samplers. Note the early "A" and that "V" is "U."

Her verse reads:

LOVE THE LORD AND HE WILL

BE A TENDER FATHER UNTO THE(sic)

AWAKE ARISE BEHOLD THOU

HAST THY LIFE A LIFE THY

BREATH ABLAST AT NIGHT LY(sic)

DOWN PREPARE TO HAVE THY

SLEEP THY DEATH THY BED

THY GRAVE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

IF YOU KNOW CHRIST YOU NEED

KNOW LITTLE MORE IF NOT

ALLS (sic) LOST THAT YOU HAVE

LARNT (sic) BEFORE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

O PRAISE THE LORD ALL YE

NATIONS PRAISE HIM ALL YE 

PEOPEL (sic) FOR HIS MERCIFUL KIND

NESS IS GRATE (sic) TOWARDS US AND

THE TRUTH OF THE LORD IN

DURETH (sic)

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BLACKWORK—

I have always loved blackwork. This little piggie is a piece that I stitched on needlepoint canvas with perle cotton at my ANG group in 1983.

I have this piece below stitched to a needlework bag which is a bad choice because there is so much stitching on it and I hate to think that I just throw it in the car! Should remove it from the front of the bag and frame it! I think I must have photographed it upside down or the flower is growing back to the earth. This was an Embroiderers' Guild of America group correspondence course and the fabric was---horrors--aida cloth—using black floss! It is not reversible.

You can see the bag fabric peeking above.

The piece below was taught to me at an EGA regional seminar in Grand Rapids. The teacher was Nan Tyson Euler. When I got home and started working on it, I decided to make some changes and make it my own. If I had stitched the first alphabet using the "antique" stitching method Nan charted for us, the piece would still be in its bag. I think that you sometimes need to make an executive decision on your pieces. As I recall I did the design as charted until I reached the large blue diamond which I had started in class. I did not want the thistle or whatever was supposed to be in the middle so I found a design that would fit. Same goes with the area outside the diamond. Note that I ran out of the "orange" thread from my kit and just added some red. The sampler police did not come and get me!

Can't remember whether or not I changed/substitutedany designs at the bottom of the sampler. I hemmed it on all 4 sides like an old one would have been done before I had it framed.

Better go eat lunch as Bev is coming over soon to quilt her quilt and I have to be down there with her. Talk soon. --Nancy