The Size of Samplers
The ravages of time and the little value attached to them have probably reduced to very small numbers the tiny samplers such as those which are seen in [Figs. 35] and [36], and which must have usually been very infantine efforts. Those illustrated, however, show the progress made by two sisters, Mary and Lydia Johnson, in two years. Presumably Lydia was the elder, and worked the sampler which bears her name and the date 1784. This was copied by her sister Mary in the following year, but in a manner which showed her to be but a tyro with the needle; nor much advanced in stitchery in the following year, in which she attempted the larger sampler which bears her name. Lydia, on the other hand, in the undated sampler, but which was probably made in the year 1786, showed progress in everything except the power of adapting the well-known design of a pink to the small sampler on which she was engaged, as to which she clearly could not manage the joining of the pattern at the corners. The originals of these samplers measure from four to six inches in their largest dimensions.
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Fig. 34.—Scottish Sampler by Robert Henderson. Dated 1762.
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Fig. 35.—Small Samplers by Mary Johnson. 1785-6.
Author’s Collection.