SOLD Letter Voor Letter (Letter By Letter) + Sampler Chart * £40 €60 $130 Shipping Included

This stunning book - and I so mean stunning - is in new condition. It is hard backed, full-sized with over 120 jaw-dropping illustrated pages with images of Frisian samplers in the Fries Museum. And yes, dear reader, I have seen these samplers in the flesh and it was one of the most memorable visits to a museum in my life.

The book comes with a sampler pattern for this sampler above, worked by Antje Jilderts. You will have so much pleasure stitching this, believe me.

Friesland is in the very north of the Netherlands and has its own language which, when I listened to it, reminded me very much of Chaucerian English with a good sprinkling of Yorkshire to boot - but you probably don't want to know that.

And I saw these bravely marked sheets as well. I would so have loved, as a child, to have been tucked up in sheets with my initials and my father's sail boat!

Gieneke Arnolli, the curator and author of this book, explained to me that the girls stitched the bands on their samplers just picking coloured threads at random for the most part, since the target garment for these bands would have been shirt cuffs and collars, which would have been worked in white. Having the sampler in colours and not in white meant it was easier to read from.

If you have never seen Frisian samplers before - they will just steal your heart away....

I should mention that the text for this book is in Dutch, but it does have an English précis at the end of the book.