Stitch in Time

By Julie Wardell

(Based on Homespun, by Shirley Paxman, pages 33–36.)

Behold their women did toil and spin, and did make all manner of cloth (Hel. 6:13).

When pioneer women and young girls crossed the plains to settle in the west, they brought with them their knowledge of homemaking skills and crafts. Many of them were converts to the Church who came from England, Ireland, France, Denmark, and Norway. Their tradition of needlework was one of the skills they carried with them.

Annie Clark Tanner wrote this about her mother’s needlework: “Mother was an accomplished artist at needle work. Her industry in this line, as she plied her needle when crossing the ocean in a sailboat, attracted the attention of the captain and his wife for whom my mother sewed, and thus she enjoyed the best accomodations on board. When she was traveling across the plains to the Salt Lake Valley, she made yards of fine muslin embroidery with which she trimmed her first baby clothes. I noticed a small mark of yellow on the embroidery and asked her what it was.

“‘That mark,’ she said, ‘is a little iron rust from a wire on the bow of the wagon where I tied my work when crossing the plains.’”

With limited space in ships, covered wagons, and handcarts, the pioneers brought only a few belongings. Scraps of cloth, thread, needles, and maybe a treasured sampler might have been included.

Making a sampler was often part of a young girl’s upbringing. Mothers, grandmothers, and schools taught girls the art of needlework on samplers. While the girls were learning different stitches, they also learned their numerals and their ABCs by stitching and reciting them.

A sampler became a girl’s “record book” of stitching patterns for mending, darning, hemming, buttonholing, cross-stitching, and embroidery work.

Part of a sampler’s work might have included the alphabet, numerals, a favorite saying, quotation, verse, or scripture. Some samplers were decorated with birds, animals, trees, fruits, flowers, temples, schools, or houses. The beehive as well as the likenesses of the Church Presidents and other leaders were favorite pioneer designs.

After deciding on a design, the child drew it on cloth with a pencil or pen. The cross-stitch was frequently used, as well as outline, stem, satin, and chain stitches. Quite often the maker would stitch her name and age, and the date the sampler was finished.

Samplers were usually stitched on a rectangular piece of linen, using silk or wool thread. After the settlers reached the Salt Lake Valley, they had to make their own wool thread from the sheep fleece they carded, spun, and dyed. To obtain linen thread and cloth, the pioneers grew flax. The women also started raising silkworms for silk thread and cloth.

One young pioneer girl wrote: “Aunt Nancy reeled the silk from some of the cocoons and dyed the skeins which we used for our art work. These we put in suitable frames; so for years the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and ‘God Bless Our Home’ were ever before us.”

Gradually the lifestyle of young girls changed, and the art of needlework on samplers was no longer a part of their education. Today, however, many young girls and women are discovering that the skills and crafts of their ancestors can provide them with an enjoyable pastime.

Samplers courtesy of Museum of Church History and Art

Title needlework by Julie Wardell

1. Ann Eckford, a young English girl, cross-stitched this sampler of the Nauvoo Temple sometime between 1846 and 1849.

2. This South African sampler was made in 1861 and has a Latter-day Saint saying common at that time and two lines from the hymn “Come, Come, Ye Saints” (Hymns, no. 30).

3. This sampler was created in 1820 by seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Hesketh, who joined the Church on August 30, 1850. She taught the gospel and the art of embroidery to her daughter Grace.

4. Thirteen-year-old Mary Ann Broomhead created this sampler as a tribute to Joseph and Hyrum Smith. She stitched it shortly after their martyrdom in 1844. The sampler is typical of a memorial popular in the nineteenth century. The flower border is done with silk thread, and the tribute is stitched with Mary Ann’s own hair. A coffin is stitched at the bottom with the martyrs’ initials and is topped with an urn.

5. This sampler was made in 1860 by a Church convert of European heritage who lived in South Africa and was a member of the Mowbray Branch. The stitched saying was popular among the Utah Saints, and its popularity had spread to far-off missions.

6. Grace Hesketh Liptrot Rigby and her husband, John Rigby, sailed from Liverpool, England, May 30, 1863, to settle in Utah. She brought with her this sampler, which she had made when she was eight years old, along with one her mother, Elizabeth Hesketh, had made.