Available as a printed booklet and as a pdf download. Click HERE for the PDF download.
When we gaze upon Mary’s sampler, we can feel her energy and enthusiasm. The ten-year-old child was certainly an eager student, and we are sure that Mary’s needlework teacher and her parents were proud of her finished sampler. Amazingly, the sampler has retained its rich and heady palette of colours; they glow with life. They are reminiscent of the colours often found in Scottish samplers. Although Celtic in origin, the sampler is not Scottish; the sampler was stitched in Cornwall, England.
Mary finished her sampler on November 22 but, alas, the last two digits of the year have been removed. This is what is known as a vanity sampler. Later in life, when a samplermaker did not want to reveal her true age, she would remove or alter the date on her needlework.
Without the decade the sampler was worked in, we thought that we would not be able to find our Mary Choak(s). However, the research gods were smiling down on us. A search of family history records for baptisms in the 1800s resulted in 17 hits. Through our knowledge of sampler styles in this century we discounted those born before 1810 and after 1880. This left us with three Marys. Two were born in Cornwall, and one was born in London to Cornish parents who returned to Cornwall where they raised their daughter.
All three girls we found were raised in or around Helston which is the town nearest to where Nicola lives. We strongly suspect that our Mary is Mary Ann Choaks who was born in 1841 in the village of Mawgan-in-Meneage, just south of Helston on the Lizard Peninsula. Within the booklet there is detauled information about Mary’s life.
Mary’s beautiful sampler has a vibrant palette of 13 colours. The model was stitched using Soie 100.3 from Au Ver à Soie, and we have included conversions for Soie d’Alger and DMC.
The sampler is suitable for needleworkers of all levels of ability. Mary executed her sampler predominantly with cross stitches laid over two threads of linen together with Algerian eyelets, backstitches, and rice stitches.
Mary’s sampler has been painstakingly reproduced and stitched by Lisa Brown. 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.
