SOLD This Is The Way I Pass My Time : So Kan Ich Meine Zeit Ferdreiven * £40 €60 $130 Including Shipping (Australia & New Zealand $140)

This is an extraordinarily wonderful book about the embroidered, decorated hand towels of the Pennsylvanian Germans. These show towels were often made to hang behind the panel doors echoing centuries' long tradition and as exemplars of girlhood embroidery. The hard back, first edition book of 1984 is in pristine condition with undamaged jacket (it is in a special preserving sleeve - but with no cellotape fastening to mark the pages).

This full-sized book of 292 densely packed pages documents well over 100 of these decorated panels, some of the images are in colour and some in black and white.

They are wonderful items and often overlooked when studies of girlhood embroidery are made.

What is special about this book is the level of detail and research - here can be found hand made pencil charts specifically for samplers, something you don't see in sampler books!

There is a large cross over of motifs from samplers to decorated towels and many examples are given.

The book includes discussion of motifs and many charted patterns for you to stich yourself. The harebell or columbine motif seen below recalls motifs used on Quaker samplers

And below you can see the cross over between designs used on woven coverlets and those used on hand towels.