It Began With a Pillow

The Story Behind Our First  Sampler

Sometimes a design begins with a carefully drawn plan. Sometimes it begins with a color palette, a season, or a particular piece of fabric. And sometimes, it begins with a pillow.

A few weeks ago, while I was working on our Make Finishing Fun™: Beyond the Frame guide, I kept coming back to the idea of a large sampler finished as a beautiful, substantial pillow. There was something about it that felt wonderfully old-fashioned and comfortable at the same time—the kind of piece that looks as though it has always belonged in the room. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. You loved that pillow, too.

And the more I looked at it, the more one thought kept returning: I want to design a sampler. Not a little sampler. Not a quick weekend stitch. A real, large sampler—the kind of piece that gives you somewhere to wander with your needle. I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into.

One Week, A Lot of Little Squares

I design cross stitch every day, but this was different. There was a house to build. Birds to place. Flowers to grow. Borders to balance. Colors to move from one side of the design to the other so that the entire piece felt connected. And then there was symmetry. Oh, the symmetry.

I would move one little section, sit back and look at it, move something else, decide the first thing had been better where it was, put it back, and then discover something three inches away that suddenly needed attention. One week later, I finally looked at it and knew: There it is. Our first large Anabella’s sampler was finished.

And somewhere during that week, something else happened. I fell completely in love with samplers.

So, What Exactly Is a Sampler?

Once I started reading about the history behind them, I understood why these pieces have fascinated needleworkers and collectors for generations. The word sampler is connected to words meaning an example. Long before needleworkers had the abundance of printed charts and patterns we have today, samplers could serve as personal records of patterns, stitches and techniques—a place to preserve an idea so it could be used again.

The Victoria and Albert Museum traces the sampler tradition back centuries and holds a collection of more than 700 examples, including samplers dating to the 1400s. Think about that for a moment. Long before we had the abundance of pattern books, PDF charts waiting in our inboxes, or photographs saved on our phones, a needleworker could keep ideas with her needle and thread—a border she wanted to remember, a flower she had learned, a stitch she might need again, an alphabet, or a motif. Her sampler could become a working record of what she knew. I love that.

From Reference Book to Needlework Education

Over time, the purpose of samplers changed. By the 17th century in England, samplers were increasingly being used to teach girls needlework. Some were arranged in bands of repeating borders and patterns; others contained individual motifs. Alphabets had a practical purpose, too: girls needed to learn to mark household and personal linens so they could be identified.

By the 18th century, samplers were changing again. They became squarer and increasingly decorative—pieces that could be displayed rather than simply rolled away as working references. Alphabets and repeating patterns remained, but decorative borders, pictures and verses joined them. Houses and gardens became especially popular subjects. You can explore examples and more of this history through the V&A’s history of needlework samplers.

Across the Atlantic, samplers became an important part of girls’ education in America as well. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History identifies the sampler stitched by Loara Standish of Plymouth Colony around 1645 as the earliest known American sampler. By the 1700s, American girls were stitching alphabets and numerals while learning needlework skills useful in household life. Later samplers became increasingly elaborate, incorporating flowers, houses, verses and pastoral or religious scenes.

Some were signed, some included dates, and some told us where their makers lived or studied. And that is where I think samplers become something much more interesting than simply old pieces of embroidery.

They Left Something of Themselves Behind

Hundreds of years later, we are still studying the needlework these girls and women left behind. Museums use surviving samplers to learn about women’s education and lives. Names, dates, locations, schools and teachers stitched into the pieces have helped researchers connect needlework with diaries, letters, account books, advertisements and local histories.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has described samplers as both demonstrations of learned skills and ways of preserving needlework knowledge for future reference. Even when makers worked within established traditions, individual skill and creativity remained visible.

I find that incredibly moving, because suddenly those little X’s aren’t just little X’s. Someone chose them. Someone counted them. Someone made a mistake and probably pulled a few back out. Someone sat near a window trying to catch enough light to see. Someone finished the last stitch. And then, somehow, the work survived.

The House at the Center

Our new sampler is not a reproduction of an antique sampler. I didn’t set out to copy a particular historic piece or pretend that this design came from another century. This is an Anabella’s design, created today. But I wanted it to feel connected to the long tradition that made me fall in love with samplers in the first place.

And so there is a house at its center. That seems particularly appropriate for Anabella’s. Around it are flowers and greenery, two wonderful little birds, a heart, repeating motifs and a border that encloses the entire scene. Cranberry, evergreen, warm gold and deep blue give it the rich, collected feeling I wanted.

I didn’t assign imaginary historical meanings to every bird or flower. One of the things I’ve learned while researching samplers is that it’s very easy to turn decorative motifs into folklore if we’re not careful. These motifs have meaning because I chose them for this sampler. The house represents home. The heart is love. The flowers bring life and abundance to the piece. The birds bring movement and personality. And the border gathers everything together, almost like the walls around a little stitched world.

At its center is home.

That feels very Anabella’s to me.

And Then There Was the Pillow

Once the sampler was complete, there really was only one way I wanted to see it finished: as the pillow that started this whole adventure. Big. Soft. Welcoming. The kind of pillow that belongs on an old wooden settle or tucked among quilts that have been collected over the years. Something beautiful enough to notice but comfortable enough to live with.

Because that is something I want us to keep remembering with our needlework: we are allowed to live with the things we make. Cross stitch doesn’t have to spend its entire life behind glass. Turn it into a pillow. Put it on a shelf. Finish it as an ornament. Make it part of your home. That is exactly why Make Finishing Fun™ exists.

I Think We’ve Started Something

When I began this design a week ago, I thought I was designing a sampler. I didn’t realize I was discovering an entirely new part of needlework that I wanted to explore. Now I want to know more. I want to look at old samplers. I want to learn about the women and girls who stitched them. I want to understand how sampler styles traveled from one place to another and how teachers, schools, families and communities influenced what appeared on the fabric. And, of course, I want to design more.

There is something wonderful about taking this very old needlework tradition and adding a new piece to it—not pretending that our work is antique, but acknowledging the generations of stitchers who came before us while making something that belongs to our own time and our own homes.

Perhaps someday, long after we’re gone, someone will pick up one of the samplers we’re stitching today. Maybe they’ll turn it over and wonder who stitched it. Maybe they’ll wonder where it lived. Maybe they’ll notice the tiny variations that tell them a human hand made it. I rather like that thought.

So yes, it took me an entire week to design this one. And yes, there were moments when I wondered why on earth I had decided I needed quite so many flowers. But I already know something else.

There are more stories to stitch.

— Elayne
Anabella’s Needleart
Where Every Stitch Tells a Story.