Samplers as Teaching Tools:

Many samplers throughout the centuries became stitched records of some of the most important milestones in family life. Births, marriages, and deaths were carefully commemorated on linen, turning needlework into a permanent family register. These samplers tell us not only about craft but also about memory, love, and loss.

Birth Samplers: Welcoming New Life

From the 18th century onward, it became common for families to mark the arrival of a child with a sampler. Sometimes stitched by the mother, but often later by the child herself, these samplers recorded the baby’s name, date of birth, and sometimes even the place of birth. Typical motifs included:

• Flowers and Blossoms: New life, growth, and innocence.
• Doves and Birds: Symbols of peace and divine blessing.
• Cradles or Swaddled Infants: More rare, but occasionally seen in pictorial samplers.

Birth samplers were often cheerful in color, using soft blues, pinks, and golds. They doubled as both a teaching exercise and a treasured keepsake, proudly displayed in the family home. Today they are invaluable records for genealogists, often surviving when official documents have been lost.

Marriage Samplers: Stitched Symbols of Unions

Marriage was another occasion often marked with stitches. These samplers recorded not only the date of union but also the names of both partners, joining them forever in silk or cotton.

Common motifs included:

• Hearts: Symbols of love and fidelity.
• Intertwined Initials: A visual joining of two lives.
• Crowns: Suggesting honor and blessing upon the couple.
• Houses: Representing the new household being created.

Marriage samplers were particularly popular in England and America in the 18th and 19th centuries. They were displayed in parlors as both art and testimony to a family’s lineage. In many cases, a young woman would stitch her own marriage sampler in anticipation of her wedding, combining her needlework skill with a deeply personal milestone.

Mourning Samplers: Love and Loss

Perhaps the most poignant life-event samplers are mourning samplers, created to remember those who had passed away. These became especially common in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, reflecting a growing culture of memorial art.

Typical motifs included:

• Weeping Willows: A symbol of grief and remembrance.
• Funerary Urns: Classical emblems of mourning.
• Angels or Cherubs: Suggesting eternal life and heavenly care.
• Verses on Death: Bible passages or poetry about loss and hope.

These samplers are often stitched in more muted colors — soft browns, grays, or blues. They tell us not only the names and dates of those who died but also the emotional landscape of families facing grief. A mourning sampler stitched by a young girl might memorialize her siblings, parents, or even her teacher, giving historians moving glimpses into the personal cost of disease and hardship in past centuries.

Why Use Samplers as Records

Why stitch these events when families could simply write them down? The answer lies in both practicality and symbolism. In an era before universal literacy, stitching letters and numbers was often how children learned them. Recording family milestones through needlework was not only practice but also preservation. A stitched record would not fade as easily as ink, nor could it be as quickly discarded.

There was also pride involved. A sampler framed on the wall displayed a family’s education, skill, and values. It showed that daughters had been properly taught, that the family cherished its lineage, and that important moments were worthy of both memory and art.

Regional Differences

English and American samplers often included elaborate borders and pictorial scenes alongside the records of events.

Dutch samplers might record life events in long vertical band formats, combining religious verses with symbolic motifs.

Scandinavian samplers sometimes included bold geometric motifs and initials for entire families, serving as a hybrid between a teaching sampler and a family register.

Each region reflected its culture through symbols and color choices, but the intent remained the same: to anchor life’s turning points in thread.

A Famous Schoolgirl’s Sampler

Perhaps the most famous example of a teaching sampler is the one worked by Elizabeth Parker of Ashburnham, England, in 1830. Unlike most samplers of its time, Elizabeth’s wasn’t simply rows of alphabets and verses. Instead, in tiny red cross-stitches, she filled her linen with an astonishingly personal and anguished account of her life. She began with the standard opening—her name, age (17), and date. But instead of listing moral proverbs, she poured out a confession of despair: stories of mistreatment, loneliness, and thoughts of suicide. Her words run uninterrupted across the cloth, almost like a diary stitched in red. While Elizabeth Parker’s sampler is an extreme and haunting example, it highlights the expressive potential of these teaching exercises. What began as an alphabet drill became, for her, the only safe space to tell her story. Today, her sampler is preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and remains one of the most studied and poignant artifacts of the period.

A Designer’s Reflection

As a modern needlework designer, I often look back at these historical samplers and think about the power they carried. Unlike a diary hidden away, these works were meant to be seen. They kept family members alive in memory, celebrated new unions, and marked new beginnings.

When we recreate life-event samplers today — for births, weddings, or in memory of a loved one — we are continuing a tradition that spans centuries. Each stitch becomes part of a chain linking us to women and children of the past who used the same art to give permanence to life’s fleeting moments. 

Why Antique Samplers Still Matter

For historians, these samplers are invaluable records. For stitchers, they are inspiration. And for families who inherit them, they are treasures. A single sampler can tell us who was born, who was married, and who was mourned, all through the patient work of a needle.

Today, as many stitchers take up samplers once again, the motifs of hearts, houses, willows, and cradles remind us that embroidery has always been more than decoration. It has been a way of saying: this life mattered, and we remember.

Written by Thea Dueck: designer, teacher and founder of the Victoria Sampler. A professional needlework designer and a recognized authority in specialty stitches. She loves sharing the joy of samplers and specialty stitches.