Sampler and Antique Needlework Quarterly

Fine Lines*

Just CrossStitch

Classic Stitches

New Stitches

Inspirations

CrossStitch Sampler*

Treasures In Needlework*

Piecework

The Gift Of Stitching

Wiehler Gobelin


(* indicates out of publication)

Antique Needlework Links

http://www.glasgowmuseums.com/venue/index.cfm?venueid=1

http://www.pilgrimhall.org/samplers.htm

http://medieval.webcon.net.au/index.html

http://www.elizabethancostume.net/

http://www.exemplum.co.uk/home.html

http://www.powys.gov.uk/index.php?id=2156&L=0

http://www.samplings.com/

http://www.plimoth.org/

http://www.tlysau.org.uk/en/subjects/2544

http://www.osv.org/




And what is a stitch for? To hold.
It binds past to present, old country to new,
generation to generation.

My November Guest


My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

~ Robert Frost

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Old Sampler

Out of the way, in a corner
of our dear old attic room,
Where bunches of herbs from the hillside
Shake ever a faint perfume,
An oaken chest is standing,
With hasp and padlock and key,
Strong as the hands that made it
On the other side of the sea.

When the winter days are dreary,
And we're out of heart with life,
Of its crowding cares aweary,
And sick of its restless strife,
We take a lesson in patience
>From the attic corner dim,
Where the chest still holds it treasures,
A warder faithful and grim.

Robes of an antique fashion,
Linen and lace and silk,
That time has tinted with saffron,
Though once they were white as milk;
Wonderful baby garments,
'Broidered with loving care
By fingers that felt the pleasure,
As they wrought the ruffles fair.

A sword, with the red rust on it,
That flashed in the battle tide,
When from Lexington to Yorktown
Sorely men's souls were tried;
A plumed chapeau and a buckle,
and many a relic fine,
And all by itself the sampler,
Framed in with berry and vine.

Faded the square of canvas,
And dim the silken thread,
But I think of white hands dimpled,
And a childish, sunny head;
For here in cross and tent-stitch,
In a wreath of berry and vine,
She worked it a hundred years ago,
"ELIZABETH, AGED NINE."

In and out in the sunshine
The little needle flashed,
And in and out on the rainy day,
When the merry drops down plashed,
As close she sat by her mother,
The little Puritan maid,
And did her piece on the sampler,
While the other children played.

You are safe in the beautiful heaven,
"ELIZABETH, AGED NINE;"
But before you went you had troubles
Sharper than any of mine.
Oh, the gold hair turned with sorrow
White as the drifted snow,
And your tears dropped here, where I'm standing,
On this very plumed chapeau.

When you put it away, its wearer
Would need it never more,
By a sword-thrust learning the secrets
God keeps on yonder shore;
And you wore your grief like glory,
You could not yield supine,
Who wrought in your patient childhood,
"ELIZABETH, AGED NINE."

Out of the way, in a corner,
With hasp and padlock and key,
Stands the oaken chest of my fathers
That came from over the sea;
And the hillside herbs above it
Shake odors fragrant and fine,
And here on the lid is a garland
To "ELIZABETH, AGED NINE."

For love is of the immortal,
And patience is sublime,
And trouble a thing of every day
And touching every time;
And childhood sweet and sunny,
And womanly truth and grace,
Ever can light life's darkness
And bless earth's lowliest place.

Mrs. M.E.Sangster

Poems of Home Life
American Tract Society, N.Y.C., New York