Treasures At The Textile Society Fair, Chelsea

It was a sunny hot day in Chelsea - the littlies were dashing naked through the fountains by the Saatchi Gallery and there was an air of festivity down the Kings Road. Inside the Town Hall was a veritable Samarkand of traders' textiles to enjoy and buy - and yes, dear reader, I bought!

The French sampler couldn't fail to attract my eye - this is the first French mourning sampler I have seen and is dedicated to Josephine Duclos of Bourgoin who died 15 February 1849 aged 8 years. Very beautiful and dignified, it was worked by her 10 year old sister Marie.

Elizabeth Gibbons also had some marvellous continental samplers, including darners and some lovely white-work English exercises. I'll talk more about Elizabeth in another post.

Oh, just look at those irresistable purple dancing shoes tucked away in there!

And here was a treasure trove of pattern sampler books - porter!
If you weren't there, you missed a treat. In addition to all the wonderful items to see and buy, there were wonderful people to talk to and I shall be telling more about them in some future blogs entitled Meetings with Remarkable Women.....

Monika's Amager Panel 1799 - and the Amager Panel Chart Winner

The winner of this week's giveaway - the Amager Panel 1799 - can see here from Monika in Norway how beautifully this panel stitches up. Monika in Norway has completed her panel and can say that it has since been framed in a narrow "golden" frame and looks fabulous. It was very time-consuming but she loved every minute though. Congratulations, Monika!

Thank you to everyone who entered this last week's draw - and thank you too for your very kind comments about the blog. Some of you asked if we weren't exhausted posting every day. Well if you could see the emptied teapots, the digestive biscuit wrappers (chocolate digestives, I hasten to add), the chipped nail varnish and pencils twined through tousled hair, then you wouldn't need to ask. After spending a half hour drinking tea, eating chocolate biscuits and whirling around to Accuradio Oldies we are totally on the floor. Thankfully, we have the blog posts to relax us. And it is so relaxing to tell you that the winner of this week's draw for the lovely Amager 1799 Panel is Judy from Kalamazoo. (One day I must simply visit Kalamazoo!) Thank you to everyone for sharing the fun and taking time to enter.
Amager is Little Holland in Denmark with its own unique history and stitching motifs. Full printed chart with costume diary, 6 mini projects and history of Amager. Price includes postage.

Birthday Jigsaw to Download

I had this lovely card sent for my birthday and thought it might make a pretty jigsaw to share. As you piece it together you'll have time to admire and ooh and aah all that lovely embroidery and lace. And if you can't make it to the Textile Fair in Chelsea today, perhaps it will be a little consolation. I hope you enjoy your free jigsaw download this week. However, sadly, this is not going to work for Mac users. Instructions: Click here next Click Open, then click the .EXE file name and click Run, when you see the jigsaw puzzle, click Play Too many pieces? Try clicking on Trays on the top tool bar to create any number of resizeable trays to sort your pieces ........ you can also click the Cheat button and watch the puzzle solve itself! The software is by David Gray designer of Jigsaws Galore - the powerful jigsaw player and creator for Windows.

Black Country Museum Samplers On-Line

The Black Country is that area of the West Midlands in the UK which was thick with smoke at the start of the Industrial Revolution and as a consequence its buildings and washing lines were distinguished by soot. Now the museums in the area have come together to put their collections on line. Hurrah! And you can visit them from your armchair right now. The sampler above is signed Ann Allen her Work Nov 15 1786 and Ann declares herself Taught by Mary Knight.

The sampler above in well-known format of a bible board is captioned Eliz Wright workd this in Mrs Robins's School in Birmingham June 12 1737.

And the one above is a delightful hint that we should all try to think ahead when we stitch and include some personal details for future generations' sake. How about incorporating a photograph of yourself?

This painting is also in the collection - and shows a family gathering - can you see the sampler on the wall behind the standing girl's head? To visit the on-line collection, just click here.