A traditional craft is being revived

Press, 2 May 1988, Page 15

A traditional craft is being revived

Embroidering samplers is a woman’s craft dating from at least medieval times, when pictorial symbols were more prevalent than the written word. Some of those early symbols, such as the pomegranate, representing fertility, and a sprig of blossom, depicting blessing and life, are still used in sampler embroidery today. In the eighteenth century, the range of motifs used increased to include houses, churches, baskets of flowers and hovering angels, as well as the traditional Biblical scenes. Samplers became “pictures,” often edged with a silk ribbon. From the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries, religious scenes were ho longer used and instead samplers showed pastoral idylls or ordinary people in their daily lives. The development of silk thread led to the practice of satin stitch, which allowed colours to be merged. New fabrics such as fine woollen or cotton cloth, and linens and silks were used as bases. Small brightly coloured beads were worked in for effect.

> From 1800 onwards, ’ canvas was used as a 1 base, making counting • stitches easier, and f printed charts, similar to those available today, r were used. Dyed wools in s many colours were pro- ■ duced in England. i Just as teachers of sampler embroidery were : largely responsible for its popularity, so were they also the cause of its decline. > In the middle of the ■y nineteenth century, Ro- > salie Scallingfield, of Ber- ; lin, developed samplers of : unadorned rows of letters in Turkey Red thread. Gone the expressive, i spontaneous samplers of the past. i Up to 1900, these sober samplers were an integral 1 part of every girl’s education — before disappearing completely. Who can • blame them for their lack of interest? Although a great number of fine samplers have disappeared for ever, there are, fortunately, still many in museums or in i private collections. > Some of these tradiI tional designs have been i incorporated into modern sampler kitsets.

Anna Taylor, of Broomfields Natural Crafts in Merivale Mali, does a brisk trade in sampler kitsets, as more and more women discover the pleasure of this traditional craft "There is a great revival of interest in samplers. I think there is a swing back to the days when women sat and worked on things like, this," she says. Anne has organised an exhibition of samplers at the Centre Court of Merivale Mall, from today through to Saturday. The 30 samplers have all been worked by Canterbury and Otago women. Most have been done by Margaret Louisson, a Christchurch grandmother who has embroidered samplers for each of her eight grandchildren. Others have been sewn to mark births or weddings. Designs come from Denmark, the Netherlands, England, France, the United States, Australia and New. Zealand. Some contain reproductions of mistakes made by children centuries ago.