Sewing a sampler

In the olden days (from Renaissance times all the way up to Laura Ingalls Wilder's childhood), young ladies learning to sew would make "samplers", or pieces of cloth showing off all the needlework they had practiced. These days, sewing is less of a survival skill for most of us and more of a hobby, but it's still fun to learn a bit of embroidery.

Below the photo, I have some links to help you get started on your sampler.

A very elaborate, fancy sampler

This page has a fascinating history of samplers. Do you know how samplers are similar to camera phones? (I didn't!)

For those new to hand sewing, this page has a great introduction to basic hand sewing stitches.

If you're interested in getting started with a little embroidery, check out this tutorial for a beautiful ombré sampler. You'll learn some basic stitches and some fancy ones too.

While researching this post, I came across this book: The Prairie Girl's Guide to Life (Amazon). Other than the fact that it has instructions for making a sampler, it's unrelated to today's blog post, but I thought it looked like something my readers would enjoy. That would be a fun book to peruse on a crafty afternoon.

Do you like to sew? What have you been making lately?

Elizabeth

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