Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality

I've long had a soft spot for the Quakers, I guess ever since reading Steal Away Home -- maybe in third or fourth grade -- in which two runaway slave boys are helped on their journey north along the Underground Railroad by, among others, generous Quakers, and from Jessamyn West's Except for Me and Thee which I read in high school, I think, coming away from the story not only with one of my early book crushes (after Tom Sawyer!) but also with a growing respect for a religious community that from its earliest days gave its women a place beside its men, not below them, that not only preached the values of tolerance, peace, and integrity but practiced them.  It was an easy decision for me to choose a nearby Quaker college when I finally went back to get my degree, and although it was not a "religious" college at all, those values were nevertheless very much in evidence.  When I first started becoming intrigued by antique cross-stitch samplers last summer, one of the first I saw was this "Quaker Virtues" by ByGone Stitches, and it spoke to me deeply, on many levels.  There is the Quaker connection, of course, but I also loved its jigsaw-puzzle-like blend of small and large figures -- that so often look like Scandinavian knitting motifs, another deep pleasure for me -- and the intertwining of letters and words with the motifs, words that would speak to me deeply with or without the Quaker associations.  I bought two sampler patterns at about the same time, and started with the "Froth and Bubble", then got sidetracked by the "Peace to My Friend" -- but lately, stitching of a summer evening on a little freebie chart that will soon be finished --

which is by Beth Twist -- my thoughts turned once again to the "Quaker Virtues".  I had bought the linen at the same time as that for "Froth and Bubble" but held off on getting the threads, and when I started planning in earnest this week, I remembered why.  The recommended threads are overdyed cotton flosses by Gentle Arts or by Classic Colorworks, both of which are extraordinarily beautiful -- the downside is that the chart says you will need 38 skeins of the main color and 3 of the accent one, and 41 skeins of overdyed thread tip into three figures in one's shopping basket, I was rather aghast to see.  Even with David back at work (huzzahs and relief all around), that's a lot to spend on thread -- even on the assumption that 38 is probably a generous estimate.  So I've wistfully but realistically set aside Classic Colorworks and Gentle Arts for smaller projects, and have been auditioning the more budget-friendly DMC --

Their "Antique Blue" is I think my absolute favorite DMC color family, so the 931 is a sentimental favorite, and I'm sure would be very handsome for this chart with the sand-y 3782, though I'm also really liking the way that the slightly-more periwinkle "blue gray" 161 plays with the taupe-y 07 -- and there is a possibility of overdying at home, with my one bottle of RIT "Evening Blue," carefully saved in this 2020 shortage.  (Would it stretch to 38 skeins?!)

And, if you are wondering how a group that promotes simplicity and plainness can inspire designs full of such near-giddy abandon as the sampler above, you are not alone.  I had to laugh when I pulled out the "Virtues" chart again this week, that after months of looking at antique Quaker samplers, how "modern" this one looks to me now!  Like most sampler styles, different regions evolved different arrangements and styles of design, some quite distinct from others.

The earliest-yet-known Quaker sampler is this one by Elizabeth Pim, dated in different places 1729, 1731, and apparently 1750. The Pims were a noted Quaker family in what is now County Laois in central Ireland, and Elizabeth may have been associated with the Quaker school there at Mountmellick, or simply worked hers in the then-emerging Quaker style.  Samplers were originally simply models for future reference, so it is not surprising that Elizabeth worked hers on different pieces of linen at different times, then sewed them together.  Interestingly, the distinctive scattering of initials of family and friends is already in evidence on her second piece.

Eliza Swinborn's sampler of 1803 is already a "typical" Quaker sampler, with its border of half-motifs surrounding full motifs in the center, with scattered initials. The motifs of paired birds, swans, flower sprays, and eight-pointed stars, because of their association with the Quaker virtues of equality, community, simplicity, and peace, would quickly become used widely by Quaker teachers instructing their students.

The Ackworth and Westtown Quaker schools, in West Yorkshire and Pennsylvania respectively, took the alphabet-and-motifs sampler combination and went in different directions with it.  Ackworth samplers were typically a selection of half-motifs around the edge of the sampler, with full motifs in the middle, and like Elizabeth Pim's with the initials of school-friends or family scattered in the spaces between motifs.  I don't know if it was the girl's choice or the teacher's, but Ackworth samplers are found in both monochrome and polychrome, as these by Rebecca Blake in 1809 and Ann Grimshaw a few years later in 1818 --

(Nobody online wants to venture that the two Grimshaw girls were related, but as a genealogist that seems to me an interesting tidbit worth researching!)

Although some Westtown students worked samplers very much in the Ackworth style, some of the teachers went in a different direction and emphasized the alphabet with a plain set of letters like Rachel Ellis's above.  (Perhaps this was for the younger girls, just learning to stitch?)

Susanna Furman's 1831 sampler has a less "typical" arrangement, but still shows the influence of the Quaker tradition with its central wreath of birds and a number of floral motifs that are found in other Quaker samplers.  She may have been from the Delaware River Valley.

It was not a Quaker school, but you can see the relationship between Quaker samplers and the style that developed at the Bristol Orphanage.  This one by Emma Sandford in 1867 is typical of the Bristol Orphanage style, with its lines of non-stop alphabets at the top that gradually decrease in size -- sometimes surrounding a motif in the middle, sometimes not as the stitcher chose -- then a closely-packed assortment of borders and motifs in the lower section.  (Bristol Orphanage samplers were always hemmed, as the goal was for the girls, and sometimes the boys, to learn to sew and mark neatly and efficiently, in order to obtain good jobs in service to support themselves honestly.)

So you can see that the unusual octagonal shape and closely-packed assortment of motifs of the "Quaker Virtues" sampler give it a much more modern air than traditional Quaker samplers, but it bears a very close resemblance to them, especially to the Ackworth style!

(Sources for much of this historical information comes from here, here, here, and here.)

Comments

[juliet brown]

How absolutely beautiful - they are quite stunning

[Berva Smith]

You put an amazing amount of time and thought into research. Helped a bit by the Covid19 isolation, perhaps.

[Dawn Beck]

I love the Quaker samplers especially Eliza Swinborn's, but not sure I've the time/patience to work it. Before I moved to Bradford, I used to sometimes visit Ackworrh School for Quaker business meeting, sadly they don't have any samplers on display.
I do find the modern Quaker Christmas sampler slightly ironic as at that time Quakers didn't celebrate Christmas at all, it was just another day, the schools didn't have a Christmas holiday. Nowadays UK Quakers do, but in a lot more low key way than churches.

[Jeanne]

PS, for more information on the Westtown samplers, there is an article at M. Finkel & Daughter by Mary Uhl Brooks about the school, the development of its needlework curriculum and its sometimes-divergent philosophies regarding the medallion samplers. The article is based on Brooks's then-forthcoming book, Threads of Useful Learning (2015).

http://samplings.com/curator-archives/threads-useful-learning-westtown-school-samplers-0