Fabric:  40 ct Lakeside Linen Vintage Meadow Rue
Floss:  Au Ver a Soie 100/3 silk, conversion to DMC and NPI
 Stitch Count: 121 wide x 135 hi
 Design Size: 6.05 wide x 6.75 inches high
 Stitches Used: cross stitch over two and cross stitch over one
       The Antique: 7.25 x 7.50 inches on 32 ct linen, cotton thread over two and over one
        Alternate Personalization Included to Stitch one’s own Name and Year

Provenance: This sampler’s appeal was its similarity to Bristol orphanage motifs, bands and alphabets. While clearly not a Bristol school sampler, as it was stitched at Daglingworth School, curiosity leads one to wonder why similar motifs? Daglingworth lies only fifty miles from Bristol, England. It has been found that pattern booklets were used to create the motifs and borders used on Bristol samplers but these patterns were also used throughout England, France and Germany at the time. These tiny paper pattern booklets were the source of many of the schoolroom samplers stitched in the mid to late 1800s. Compare the Amelia Fox Bristol orphanage sampler stitched in 1868 to Annie Matilda’s stitched in 1862. Many common elements appear, as does the monochrome thread colors. Students at schools at these times, whether orphans or not, were taught the basics of sewing and educational instruction so that once grown they might be able to obtain a position of use in society.