From just over the Border!

I realise that sampler research isn't for everyone, just a few of us anoraks, but my intention is to record what I know about Welsh samplers so that anyone interested can learn about them with me.  No book can really compete with the Internet as a resource, because a book is restricted by the pictures that can be used, which also have to be of high quality.  The Internet allows pictures of all quality to used freely. 

So I was very excited when I found this sampler on Pinterest recently - let me try and explain its significance.

Note all the plants in line with the house and the two figures. These are favourites!

At first glance it's rather nondescript but it really made me sit up and take notice.  It was made in Dawley which is in Shropshire just on the border with England in 1745, but it contains motifs that were used regularly on Welsh samplers more than a hundred years later

I have always said that the motifs on Welsh samplers weren't Welsh but that it's their repetitive use on so many samplers in Wales that indicates Welshness. Here is some proof!

This little lady will appear again on this blog and the rosebud tree.

The shepherd with crook will also appear again and also the bluebell tree.

 This English sampler, albeit from a place very close to Wales, contains sampler motifs, mostly likely taken originally from a pattern book, these then spread across the border into Wales and were constantly repeated until they became endemic.