The Front

The Reverse

Hands Across the Sea Samplers are proud to present to you, a beautiful reversible band sampler from the private collection of Nicola Parkman. The sampler was a gift from Nicola’s husband who knows his wife well and that antique needlework, and in particular band samplers, are his “girl’s best friend”!

The 1600’s is regarded as the golden age of band sampler making, and the sampler that MH finished nearly 400 years ago on May 23rd, 1656 is one of those very special pieces. She is a beautiful example of reverse stitching.

Nicola has spent innumerable hours studying under high magnification, every single stitch in this sampler. It has been fascinating to follow the path that MH’s needle took. This is a sampler which takes the needleworker on a journey – almost a musical journey with each of the bands having its own characteristics yet contributing to the piece as a whole. It almost seems as if MH was the conductor of an orchestra, bringing in her threads and colours at precisely the right time. She has demonstrated a mastery of melody, structure and orchestration, a command of tone, colour and harmony.

The first few bands, start off with simple stitches – a gentle meandering theme, in a slow tempo, played quite softly but with occasional louder parts to keep our interest. As in music, she takes a theme, repeats it and then starts to develop it in different ways. She ingeniously uses different colours – some lighter, some brighter, changes directions of the threads and uses different stitches. She varies the texture in some areas.

Towards the middle of the sampler, it is almost as if there is a change of theme, with the colours becoming bolder– the musical journey is developing and gathering pace. You feel as if you are being led somewhere with the introduction of a beautiful blue downward path in the middle of the sampler. You can feel the intensity rising almost as if you are reaching a crescendo. This path leads to a much louder part – almost the centrepiece of the sampler, where it seems all the orchestra is playing and taking you to new heights. MH finally leaves us with a return to a softer, more muted area to conclude her sampler. Her skill with a needle is certainly to be admired!

Band samplers were commonly stitched by teenagers either at home or in school as part of their education. Occasionally we see band samplers worked by very young children – and sometimes by older women as a personal reference. They were especially necessary for recording patterns as there was a shortage of design books and only the very rich could afford them.

A band sampler could be a series of stitching exercises that progressed in difficulty. They were usually unnamed and undated. Often the length of the sampler was determined by the width of the loom on which the linen was woven, the selvedge forming the top and bottom edges. Many of the patterns found on samplers of this period can be seen on surviving household items and on costumes depicted in contemporary paintings. At this time gentlemen’s costumes were often more elaborate than their wives.