Ann Borrett -1646 from Hands Across The Sea Samplers

Description

Ann’s beautiful band sampler is highly decorative and even though she “rovght” her sampler three hundred and seventy-four years ago, the colours are still intense today. A vibrant red, a peacock blue, a deep navy blue and a mouth watering selections of greens delight the eye.

The first two bands of Ann’s sampler also appear in the band sampler stitched by Jeane Vally in 1646. Jeane’s sampler is in the Goodhart Collection at Montecute House and is featured in the book “The Goodhart Collection” on page 88.

Band samplers were the traditional “test pieces” worked by young girls. Ann’s sampler or “sam cloth” is a visual catalogue of stitches and comprises of neat rows of patterns that are suitable for repeating motifs to adorn garments and household items. The alphabet at the bottom of Ann’s sampler and her inscription demonstrate her ability to mark household linen.
Whilst we cannot trace Ann in family history records, we believe that she was probably a very young girl when stitched her sampler. It was only thirty years earlier that William Shakespeare died.
When we first acquired the sampler we thought that it was a fragment of a sampler, imagine our delight when we removed the sampler from its frame to discover that it was an entire sampler.
Her small size makes this sampler an ideal project for needleworkers wishing to venture into band samplers. Ann executed her sampler over 3 threads with stitches that are reversible. If you prefer, your sampler could be executed over 2 threads using either reversible or non-reversible stitches.