The Snow Sampler!

Finally!  I am happy to say that we are shipping this reproduction to distributors the end of this week.  I feel like I've owned "her" forever!  

The sampler was reproduced stitch-for-stitch using the colors from the back side as the reference.  I have also included Louisa's genealogy for those of you who love such things as I do.

Happy Stitching,

Diane

Louisa's Roses

Louisa had an eye for roses.  As I am charting them I see she took a lot of care to provide shading to the petals with just three shades of the coral/pink silk.  Some of the roses appear  to be forming buds, others full buds and then of course the open rose.  The sampler was handed down through the family and was kept in a drawer which accounts for the condition it is in.

The fabric I am choosing is Vintage Buttercream from Lakeside Linens.  It is a perfect match to the sampler as I view it today.  If you are brave enough you might want to use a commercial product for adding instant age like "Distress It".  I like tea bags that are dampened and then "pounced" onto the fabric and thread.  There may be acids in one or both products which simply means it will break down thread and fabric over the next 100 years or so.

The sampler was probably made before 1850.  It is undated but I have Louisa's birth date and genealogy.  Here it is for those of you who are curious:

Louisa B. Snow, born 9 Aug 1841, Massachusetts
daughter of Elisha Snow (b. 1810) and Didama Kelley
granddaughter of Elisha Snow (b. 1776/78)
g-gd of Elisha Snow (b. 1745)
gg-gd of Elisha Snow (b. 1716)
ggg-gd of Ebenezer Snow (b. 1676)
gggg-gd of Stephen Snow
ggggg-gd of Nicholas Snow and Constance Hopkins (Mayflower passenger)

I'll post more genealogy information down the road a bit.

Thank you for the blog posts and emails.  It helped me to make up my mind to reproduce it as you see it and provide a darker alternative to those who wish to stitch it differently.  I have a goal to get it out this fall or winter instead of waiting until 2012.  Let's hope!

Happy Stitching,

Diane

SNOW Sampler

I'll bet you thought (or wished) I was talking about snow flakes!  It's so hot and humid this summer, I know.  But the SNOW I was referring to was the sampler by a young girl named Louisa B. Snow, a direct descendant of Nicholas Snow and Constance Hopkins.  Everything about the sampler is a bit unusual.  To start with it wasn't stitched on the customary American linen we are used to seeing.  It was stitched on a fabric called Penelope linen that was first made in Germany and then here in the states.

The next striking element of the design are these large and simply gorgeous cabbage styled roses.  I looked through all of my books on antique samplers and didn't find anything like this.  They run in a trail across the bottom of the sampler.

Another aspect of the sampler that I fell in love with is all of the stitched virtues that Louisa included. . . . Friendship, Hope, Charity, Love and Cherish Truth.  The verse itself reads: 

Count that day lost whose low descending sun,

Derives from my hand no worthy action done.

After hinting that I had a Mayflower descendant sampler a while back I received quite a few emails.  It took me a while to figure out the genealogy but with some help from the family who sold it to me I was able to connect the dots.  Louisa was also a descendant of William Brewster.  Another sweet bonus.  I would like to hear from you here on this blog or in personal emails regarding the idea of stitching such an unusual sampler.  It will be no easy task to chart the roses but I'm excited to do it.  I will chart it for 28 count linen (exactly like Louisa's) but how do you feel about the pink roses?  Keep them or go for a more antique look?  Darker??  Help me decide!  I will faithfully reproduce the stitches in the design but the color is up in the air.  I could always stitch it in deeper colors but also provide the original colors for those wishing to stitch it exactly as Louisa did.  Let me hear your thoughts on the sampler, colors, or your Mayflower connection!

Happy Stitching,

Diane