This delightful sampler is offered to you in two different formats ~ a printed booklet and as an instant pdf download. Details of the instant pdf download can be found HERE.

What a feast for the eyes! It is such a shame that the child who created this winsome sampler did not include her name. All that is recorded are the initials WJ, PH, and the year 1888.

We sense that the sampler’s maker was industrious and enjoyed stitching her sampler. She used wool on 18ct Penelope canvas. The child certainly had an ebullient sense of colour and a vivid imagination.

The giant pear and rose, completely out of proportion, flank the red house. With smoke billowing from all its chimneys, the viewer is invited into the house through its open side door. A family home is definitely at the heart of this sampler.

The sampler was stitched the year after Great Britain celebrated Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. The Victorian age was the first in which childhood was recognised as a distinct and important stage of life. The family, embodied by the young queen, her beloved Albert, and their nine children, was idealised. The Victorians were imaginative when it came to entertaining children. The “Golden Age” of children’s illustrated books (1880 to the early 20th century) is regarded as a literary epoch that produced some of the finest works of art ever created for children’s literature.

We wonder if The Rose and The Giant Pear was inspired by a fairy tale, read one winter’s night, in front of a fire that burnt bright in a red house that was just a hop, skip, and a jump around the corner and down a lane that led to the end of a rainbow.

“Laughter is timeless, imagination has no age, and dreams are forever.” ~ Walt Disney

This sampler has been worked with cross stitch over 2 strands of linen and has been rated as suitable for needleworkers of all levels of ability. It can be stitched on Aida, Linaida, or linen.