Traditional Embroidered Animals
by Sarah Don
Mythical dragons, heraldic lions, fabled foxes, domestic cats and dogs, exotic elephants (after slips worked by Mary Queen of Scots), are all included in this book, including their sources and symbolic meanings. The animals are shown in detail, with charted patterns, most in full color. The author describes their role through the different embroidery fashions and techniques, as well as the pattern sources, symbolism, and the materials and techniques used, to recreate them. Hardbound, 128 pages, hard cover, $28.00

STITCHED IN ADVERSITY: Samplers of the Poor
In this historical exhibition ' Stitched In Adversity' a number of these beautifully stitched examples are on show. A sampler worked by Susannah Carter ' In the asylum' in 1800, is one such piece, with a text beginning

'We are orphans and fatherless
We have no parents but our god.......'

Also depicted on this sampler is a red brick building with a young girl in the doorway alongside a poignant image of another face peering out of a top window at the world below, these simple images produce an air of forlorn desolation and are immensely moving.

In 1742 Captain Thomas Coram, a master mariner and philanthropist, established The London Foundling Hospital from which one exquisite tiny christening pillow, stitched with hair, will be featured .

Amongst the most recognizable orphanage samplers are those worked in the Bristol homes founded by George Muller in 1836. By 1870 over 2,000 orphans were housed in his premises. A superbly worked sampler dated 1874 by Charlotte Eleanor Cullum would have been used to demonstrate her sewing skills to future employers as well as providing her with a repertoire of sewing stitches which she could use for future reference.

Cheltenham Female Orphan Asylum also taught fine needlework. In 1806 their stated aim was to 'clothe, maintain and educate female orphans and other female children of the poor. To inculcate into their tender minds such principals of religion and morality, to rescue them from the contamination of idleness and vice and train them up in the habit of industrious and cheerful obedience, by instructing them in such kinds of housework as may qualify them for servants in respectable households'.

Other samplers in this fascinating exhibition include examples from Raines Asylum, Dover Charity School, Greenwich Union Infirmary, The Orphan School Calcutta and Hull Infirmary etc.

Whilst needlework was the foundation  stone of female education and an important activity for daughters of the middle classes, samplers were worked by all strata of society.   Some of the finest work to  survive is that produced by the poorest girls in the most adverse conditions.   This work produced in   poor houses, orphanages, charity schools  and asylums can provide us  with some of the most moving tributes to female endeavor in the 18th and 19th  centuries.    For  these children being skilled with a needle was a passport to a better life.

This latest full color catalogue from Witney Antiques features samplers made by orphans and other less fortunate individuals, in 18th and 19th century England.
$40.00