Show sampler making pioneer art for american women samplers examples of needle art are part of our country s history in the past young and old women alike made at least one sampler and often more during their lifetimes making these was a requirement in schools as well as at home that object over which the girls had toiled and groaned in early days assumed more value later and sam piers were carefully taken along to new homes on marrying or moving to new localities actually sampler making is not indigenous to america for it first appeared in england but while ref erencen to samplers were made in literature as early as 1502 the first known was made in 1610 by ann gower who later moved to t this his country there are so far as I 1 know writes rae lewis in the washington post scarcely more than half a dozen samplers of the seventeenth century left in this country in the beginning sampler was literally the name there were no needlework books and every time a new stitch was learned from an old er member of the family or perhaps from a visitor or neighbor heigh bor it was recorded so to speak for future use on the individual sampler early ones included much open and outwork cutwork as well as lace they were long and narrow possibly be cause of widths the english looms were able to produce on wider con woven materials the narrow ness was probably because it was unnecessary to show more of each stitch lengths extended to three feet sometimes part being rolled up while it was not being worked |