Exhibition of Darning Samplers

Talking of darning samplers, Erna Hiscock and John Shepherd will be holding a Darning Sampler Exhibition on Saturday and Sunday 12 -13 September, 2009. Most of the samplers on display will be for sale, some will be from private collections, some will be local and others will be very interesting. Erna is providing nibbles and a glass of wine and there will be a catalogue available. More info from Erna Hiscock. All profits from this event will go to the Pilgrim's Hospice, Ashford Kent. Thank you to Linda Hadden at The Sampler Guild for this information.

Darning Samplers or Weaving Samplers?

Yesterday, Marjie Thompson that excellent historical weaver and author of Forgotten Pennsylvania Textiles of the 18th And 19th Centuries dropped by to say some nice things about this blog. I haven't spoken to Marjie since Ackworth2008 when we had a very lively discussion about whether the Ackworth School Darning samplers were instruction in darning or weaving.

I come from the Manningham Mills area of Leeds-Bradford textile belt. The building you see here is across the road from where I went to school and at lunchtime in the school holidays I used to join my mother in the mill canteen. In this area, when I was young, around 90% of the population were employed in weaving mills or ancillary trades. I remember that when I was young, my older sisters would bring home homework involving drawing weaving diagrams which always fascinated me. (These mills which were built on the model of Italian palaces to last for milennia are now heritage sites and apartment blocks.) My question is: Did the Ackworth girls learn weaving through this needlework exercise? Here is your chance to play with the magic loupe again and look in close-up at a detail of Mary Peacock's darning sampler. Remember you need to click the button marked 'Loupe' to see detail and 'Return' to come back to the blog. Darning exercise? Weaving exercise? What do you think?