VIRTUE AND DEVOTION

October 16, 2017 9:24 AM

What Sewing Samplers Tell Us About Women’s Lives from the 17th to 19th Centuries.
The Fitzwilliam Museum's exhibit Sampled Lives exhibition shows how samplers (needlework training and practice) hold hidden messages in symbolism and contain clues of the lives of women and girls who made them.

You can even buy reproduction kits.

American Needlework in the Eighteenth Century
A Brief History of Embroidery Samplers
A stitch in time: Research looks at old samplers in new ways

Six Samplers in the National Archives, Part 1

Martha Earl is my/ name
Hackensack is/ my station
Heaven/ is my dwelling [place]/
And Christ is my [sal/v]ation
When I [am]/ dead and in my grav/
- e and all my bones/ are rotten
For/ this you sea remem/ber me
That I are/ not forgottin/
She was born August/ 1 AD 1781
ABCDEFGHI

posted by the man of twists and turns (11 comments total)

Huh. I had no idea that the Stars My Destination mnemonic was taken from a common credo.
posted by tavella at 10:19 AM on October 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

oh wow. thanks for sharing!
posted by crush at 11:09 AM on October 16, 2017

This is one of my favourite things in any museum.
posted by mippy at 12:15 PM on October 16, 2017 [17 favorites]

Yes, Tavella I thought the exact same thing...I had no idea it was from something outside the book. Poking around a little on line I found this on a Mountain Goats form of all places which links to this form that seems to go into a bit of a thread on it....
posted by Captain_Science at 12:20 PM on October 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

Reminded me of this collection of very current messages in needlepoint...

Some good ideas never go away.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:56 PM on October 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

Samplers is one of my mom's special interests. As a birthday present she had asked for a trip to see this exibition.
posted by thegirlwiththehat at 2:45 PM on October 16, 2017

I love this. Thank you for posting.

Per the Martha Earl sampler, is there a term that describes appeals for remembrance? It doesn't seem to quite be a memento mori, but more of a simple "I was here; remember that I lived."
posted by delight at 5:04 PM on October 16, 2017

This is the sort of thing people talked about in my early nineties cultural and critical theory classes ONLY BETTER. Thank you.
posted by Caxton1476 at 6:30 PM on October 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

What a spectacular post! Thanks for sharing.
posted by john_snow at 9:23 AM on October 17, 2017

I had no idea that the Stars My Destination mnemonic was taken from a common credo.

What is it a mnemonic for?
posted by yohko at 9:38 AM on October 17, 2017

It's a mnemonic in the sense of reminder of self, rather than a device to memorize data. He's saying it to himself as he's dying alone and slow.
posted by tavella at 1:57 PM on October 17, 2017