Reception for A Stitch in Time: 18th and 19th Century Children's Samplers November 21, 2007

Almost as long as there has been cloth to sew on, industrious women have embroidered designs. The 17th century became a golden age of samplers, and a profusion of designs inspired by the exotic fruits and trade goods brought from the Orient, as well as the newly published and lavishly illustrated natural history books. Such pictorial samplers were especially popular in England and the Americas. By the 18th century needlework became the principle medium for educating girls. It could easily be combined with religious instruction, literature and geography. The recent resurgence of interest in needlework merely serves to confirm the value of the sampler as a means of self-expression.