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  • The Sampler

Alita Designs > Cross Stitch > Sampler

Sampler is a strip of fabric, usually linen canvas, embroidered with examples of different stitches, typically sewn in silk thread. Metallic thread was used in some early samplers, and after 1820, wool thread was sometimes used. Although the earliest dated sampler was made in 1598, the sampler's greatest popularity was in the 17th to the 19th century, until the advent of the sewing machine.

In the 16th century samplers were narrower and longer than later ones, with stitchery examples aligned in bands across the width of the cloth; the examples included cutwork and drawnwork embroidery and needlepoint lace (Lace), in white thread, as well as designs in colored thread. These samplers were used as reference charts by people who were accomplished in needlework.

In the 17th century the fabric became more nearly square, and the crosswise bands were abandoned in favor of an overall design worked in color in tent stitch, cross stitch, satin stitch, and, later, darning stitch. Valued as an exhibition of the maker's skill, these samplers were often framed and hung as artworks. Such samplers eventually were used principally to teach well-to-do girls their stitches, in addition to the alphabet and numerals, which came to form part of a design that often included mottoes or biblical quotations. Floral motifs and other pictorial elements gradually became common, and in the U.S. genealogical information was sometimes included.