This small primer is brought to you as part of a series of “Little Gems” that are available as a .pdf download by Hands Across the Sea Samplers.
Alice’s sweet primer charmed us from the first moment we saw it. We had little hope of finding Alice as the surname of Williams is one of the most common in the United Kingdom. However, good fortune smiled on our research. In the year that Alice stitched her primer a census was conducted. There was only one girl of the right age with the name of Alice Williams living in Cheltenham in the year 1881.
Alice Williams can be found with her widowed father Thomas, a general labourer, and younger brother James. Alice was baptised on July 19, 1871 at St Peters in Cheltenham. Her mother Jane (née Morgan) had died in March 1880.
Thomas and Jane were married on May 14, 1855 and had eight children, raising them in a small two-bedroom cottage at 8 Devonshire Place. The terrace of mellow yellow brick cottages was within walking distance of the High Street.
Alice’s primer was stitched with wool thread that was variegated, which was most unusual in the 1880s, so unusual that we decided to remove the sampler from its frame to explore the reverse. Our examination confirmed that the wool used was indeed variegated. Not with the gradual colour changes that we are used to today but with a clearly defined variegation.
It is very difficult to reproduce a sampler that was stitched this way and achieve the same colours changes on the exact stitches. We decided to experiment, and three samplers were stitched using Weeks Dyeworks Cotton Floss, The Gentle Art Simply Shaker thread, which was fussy cut, and The Gentle Art Simply Wool.
Included in the pdf download are twelve graphs.
Graph 1 ~ a four-page colour block and symbol graph using The Gentle Arts Simply Wool.
Graph 2 ~ a one-page colour block and symbol graph using The Gentle Arts Simply Wool (intended to be viewed/used on your tablet, phone, or PC).
Graph 3 ~ a four-page black and white symbol graph using The Gentle Arts Simply Wool.
Graph 4 ~ a one-page black and white symbol graph using The Gentle Arts Simply Wool (intended to be viewed/used on your tablet, phone, or PC).
Graph 5 ~ a four-page colour block and symbol graph using The Gentle Arts Sampler Threads.
Graph 6 ~ a one-page colour block and symbol graph using The Gentle Arts Sampler Threads (intended to be viewed/used on your tablet, phone, or PC).
Graph 7 ~ a four-page black and white symbol graph using The Gentle Arts Sampler Threads.
Graph 8 ~ a one-page black and white symbol graph using The Gentle Arts Sampler Threads (intended to be viewed/used on your tablet, phone, or PC).
Graph 9 ~ a four-page colour block and symbol graph using Weeks Dyeworks Cotton Floss.
Graph 10~ a one-page colour block and symbol graph using Weeks Dyeworks Cotton Floss (intended to be viewed/used on your tablet, phone, or PC).
Graph 11~ a four-page black and white symbol graph using Weeks Dyeworks Cotton Floss.
Graph 12 ~ a one-page black and white symbol graph using Weeks Dyeworks Cotton Floss (intended to be viewed/used on your tablet, phone, or PC).
The sampler is stitched entirely in cross stitch over two and can be stitched on Aida, linaida or linen. Alice is suitable for needleworkers of all abilities and would make an ideal “starter” project for those wishing to explore samplers.
With grateful thanks to Kathleen Born who lovingly stitched the three models of Alice’s primer.
At the very core of Hands Across the Sea Samplers there is a team of needleworkers who are passionate about antique samplers and being able to share those samplers with you.
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