Stitching and designing your own Antique Sampler .......

I was thinking the other day of recreating some antique samplers for my own home.  If I stitch them on antique linens and use antique sampler patterns how wonderful that would be.

So I have started looking and there are lots of free patterns on the internet.  You can also buy books about samplers and you can make up your own.

All you need to do is sketch what you would like.  Do not worry you do not have to be ' Picasso ' for this, it is just ideas.  So you may want to start with an alphabet so it is about looking for a font that you really like.  You may want to sketch a child like version of your house or put

in animals, leaves, fruit or patterns .... what ever means something to you or what you like.

You can use different threads with lots of colours or you could just use one colour like blue or red which were the favourites 100 years ago ( you may have heard of redwork .. so red thread on light colour linen)  The thing is to recreate an old sampler from vintage products but for your life now.

Your alphabet could just be that, an alphabet or you could use the pattern you choose to stitch a saying like  'The love in our family flows strong and deep, leaving us memories to treasure and keep'   You could add family names and family pet names or dates and make it a family heirloom for generations in your family to cherish and love.

Anything can be added as it is your sampler.  So you could add a little square of vintage fabric or buttons or lace.... anything goes really.

I think this would be a fun project and I may do a class on this subject next year for any of you who may be interested so please let me know by messaging me on here..... That way I can see what interest there is and decide on the finer details.

Hares and rabbits are meant to be good luck for a home so you may want to design a sampler based on this.  You might live in a very old house or cottage and want to celebrate the life of that house and you could base your design on that ... Your imagination and your design, the possibilities are endless!




Well I am away to start my busy day, I am so fired up about the new/old sampler project although I will have to try and put that aside for today and get on with my stitching of the moment.  Have a great day and as always Happy Stitching! 

The above picture is off a FREE alphabet and leaves that I googled ... as you can see you can find some great designs.  You could if you wanted buy some graph paper and design your own!!