Diverted by Antique Samplers

Antique Samplers - Home

I enjoy antique samplers. Unfortunatly I don't own to show. But there many pictures on the web, including the web site above.

What do I like about these samplers?

1) Alphabets - Sometimes incomplete, sometimes with missing or extra (?!) letters, sometimes multiple alphabets, sometimes capitalized and sometimes in lowercase and they even show up in a variety of stitches.

2) Motifs - Samplers come with a variety of motifs sometimes without explanation or relevance to the rest of the sampler - dogs, rabbits, flowers, trees, birds, deer, crowns. I've even seen one with a lobster.

3) Houses - Featured in many samplers they are almost never to scale. They will be towered over by people, trees, flowers, dogs, etc. - see #2.

4) Sayings - the older the sampler, sometimes the more obscure

5) Personal Info - name, date, location (some done by extremely young girls who shouldn't have the patience for such an undertaking)

6) Vines - a border of a flower or strawberry vine around the sampler - usually asymmetrical

7) Flowers - did I mention flowers? Sometimes very realistic, sometimes highly stylized. Sometimes a huge flower will grow out of a thimble sized pot. Or a small flower will sprout from a huge pot.

Comments

It's about time - the big reveal

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More Wildflowers of America

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Diverted by Dorset Buttons

I learned how to make Dorset Buttons yesterday at our monthly EGA meeting . These little buttons are so much fun to make! We only got three rings so that's how many I made. If I would have gotten more I'd probably be still making them. One nice thing is that they are very forgiving. I made countless mistakes on my first one and you can't tell. A quick google revealed lots of websites with historical information and tutorials on how to make them so I'm not even going to try to describe the process. Some people made their buttons with yarn, others used perle cotton. One of the examples had beads on it, so once I got home I had to find some beads to sew on. That's it for now. I'm going to be keeping my eye's open rings to use. I'm also going to have to go through my yarn stash. Using yarn gives a totally different result and I want to try some yarn ones too.

Erica's Stitches

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