George VI : coronation : Vera Hooper's sampler

It's more unusual to find a coronation sampler that comes with a maker's name.  The description given with this example:

Sampler made at school to celebrate the coronation of George V1 the father of our present Queen who unexpectedly succeeded to the throne on the abdication of Edward V111. The emblems embroidered represented the British Empire at that time.

Size 15x10 ins

I wonder where the school/teacher found the design, and how many pupils completed it.  The blue background is less common than a pale one.  The lettering could have been altered from ER to GR, Edward to George, as was done with other designs.  There are other designs for both George VI and Elizabeth II that feature the animals representing Empire/Commonwealth nations.

If you know any more about this design, please do leave a comment.

George VI : coronation: sampler with roses, coat of arms & buildings

A delicately stitched embroidery/cross stitch celebrating the coronation of George VI. 

Unlike some of the 1937 samplers, where Edward became George, I've not seen any Edward examples of this one; perhaps it was designed after the abdication.  My guess would be that it was based on a transfer.  It's a delicate-looking design, in every example I've seen: mostly embroidery with a little cross-stitch (but it looks embroidered, not counted thread work - eg. the red crown in the coat of arms).  The framed size of this example is 13inches x 15.5inches: it sold for just over GBP42.

Design-wise, it has interesting connections to two other types of designs shown in other blog posts here.  The buildings are reminiscent of the impressionistic sketch buildings embroideries such as the Windsor Castle one in the previous blog (use the tag buildings to find more).  The lettering of the bordered inscription is like that used in the map samplers (such as the county map samplers) in other blog entries here (use the tag maps to find more).

If you know any more about this design, please do leave a comment.

Buildings : Windsor Castle

Another early to mid twentieth century sepia embroidery of a building with royal associations, this time Windsor Castle.  It's in the same impressionistic/sketch style as others I've seen.  Size:  17 x 12¾in (43 x 32.5cm) high x width.

I've seen enough of these, with enough different subjects but stitched in the same style, to think it most likely that they were sold as transfers.

If you know more, please do leave a comment.

Coronation portrait tapestries : Elizabeth II & Philip

This pair of portrait tapestries were apparently made to commemorate the coronation, but not finished until 1960 by a maker who only left the initials JMN on them.  The seller guessed that they might have been made for a town hall or other public building.  Unframed size: Height 41" (104cm), Width 29" (74cm).

I wonder if these were a commercial design?  They're a lot of design work to have been done by an individual, long before the time of photo-to-chart software.  The Queen's image is apparently based on the portrait on the front of the coronation programme.  The faces are stitched in petit point.

The last picture is of the back of the work, rather than Philip as vampire...!!

The seller set a starting price of GBP400.00 and a buy it now price of GBP560.00

If you know any more about these - designer, source, whatever - please leave a comment.

Map sampler : Great Britain (modern)

Designed by Angela Beazley, for the Classic Embroidery range. It is stitched on 14 count cream aida fabric and contains Stranded Cotton thread, metallic thread, gold plated needles, chart, and full instructions. Finished size: 40 x 34cm (16 x 14in).  Seen on eBay from seller atlascraft for GBP39.95 plus postage but probably available elsewhere as well.  Atlascraft noted that they can also provide 28 count evenweave as an alternative to aida.
It's in a style that has been done, with variations, for years: the map plus pictures illustrating the endeavours/features/landmarks of the countries.  This one looks to have quite a lot of detail in the individual cross-stitch pictures.  Earlier versions, like the Festival of Britain map sampler and the county samplers, are embroidery rather than cross-stitch, and so can be more variable in skill than cross-stitch.

Map sampler : Hampshire

A map sampler of Hampshire, with the same flowing style of wording as other map samplers previously featured on this blog.  Seems more and more likely that in the 1930s somewhere a series of these was published, likely using transfers for the designs.  This example has a maker's name, Dorothy Downer, and is dated 1935.

If you know more about this design or map series, please leave a comment to add this information.

Elizabeth II : golden jubilee : little card samplers (RSN/DMC)

Two little card / small sampler designs from the Royal School of Needlework and DMC, made to celebrate the golden jubilee in 2002.  On the one hand, small designs like these are quick to stitch and might entice a needlewoman to make them as a simple commemorative piece; on the other hand, their small size would make them less likely to be framed and put on a wall, and therefore maybe less likely to survive.

Elizabeth II : golden jubilee : Mary Hickmott crown design

For those not game (or too time poor) to make the larger sampler shown last week, this Mary Hickmott golden jubilee design combines a detailed crown with enough wording to document the occasion.  It is a magazine cross-stitch chart.  Another one that could quite easily be adapted to the diamond jubilee.

Elizabeth II : golden jubilee : Mary Hickmott sampler (larger)

From Mary Hickmott, a golden jubilee cross stitch sampler chart featuring a detailed Buckingham Palace along with other symbols of royalty.  This is more classic than the magazine chart shown last week, in its treatment of the images and its choice of font.  Unlike some, it could be adapted to being a diamond jubilee sampler with only a small amount of tweaking.

Elizabeth: golden jubilee: row sampler chart

A bit on the cutesy side is this magazine chart for a golden jubilee sampler.  With various royal symbols in rows in a generally symmetrical organisation, it's a little toytown in style.  Making liberal use of royal purple and (inevitably) gold, including metallic threads, it's an attempt to be 'modern'.  As seems to be generally true, it's cross-stitch rather than embroidery.  Cross-stitch is easy to print and incude in documents; the coronation samplers of the twentieth century were from an age of transfers sent through the post (whether embroidery transfers or cross-stitch done with transfers).

If you know more about this, or have a worked example photo which could be added here, please let me know via the comments.

Elizabeth II : golden jubilee : Anchor flag kit

This kit turns up fairly regularly on eBay, and it's from a mainstream commercial kit company, so no doubt there were a lot of these about in 2002 for the golden jubilee.  It combines symbols of royalty with Buckingham Palace and a Union Jack.  In style, it has worked backgrounds as well as these symbols, with reasonably detailed shading; the font is a tad clunky for me.  Below is a worked example.

George VI : coronation : flags and shamrocks

A small sampler, a satin-stitch embroidered confection of Union Jacks and red, white and blue shamrocks, not all quite stitched so you can see it was a transfer.  I find these sorts of waving-in-the-wind crossed flags rather jolly.

As with all George VI coronation embroideries, the question arises of Edward VIII.  My best guess would be that this design postdates the abdication.  Some of the coronation designs lent themselves to an easy substitution of George for Edward, but others, like this, don't lend themselves so well.  Thus I think it was designed after the abdication, as the design fits the wording of the king and queen's names so precisely.

I know nothing more about this piece - source or designer or anything else, so if you do know more, please leave a comment and share your wisdom and/or links.

Map sampler: Festival of Britain 1951 (I)

In 1951, the Festival of Britain was staged.  To quote Wikipedia: " The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition in Britain in the summer of 1951. It was organised by the government to give Britons a feeling of recovery in the aftermath of war and to promote the British contribution to science, technology, industrial design, architecture and the arts." (source, also for the progam below).

And if you look at all the prewar patriotic embroideries, it's hardly suprising that there was an embroider sampler design relating to the Festival of Britain.  The first three pictures here show one example.  The colours are I think a trifle faded, perhaps through exposure to light.

Below are pictures of a second example.  Much brighter colours.  As the festival celebrated aspects of British life and culture, so do the images on the sampler.  From the top down: a deer/stag, and a bagpipe-playing Scotsman; a lute or harp; coming in from Ireland, an aeroplane; a ?dancer on a stage, and what looks like a circus tent; a Welsh lady playing a harp, the bust of William Shakespeare, a Beefeater and kettle drums with a music book; a roundabout/merry-go-round; a ?Cornishman with ?a squeezebox/small accordion; a sailor on a boat or barge; and a mermaid (or else a topless lady drowning and waving her knickers in the air to get the sailor's attention, which seems both unlikely and indecorous).  Also, of course, flags and around the Festival of Britain logo on the top right, the floral emblems of the British Isles; and bunting, echoing the design on the program pictured below.

And, you will notice, colour and lots of it.  More and more I think the Kent and Leicester county map samplers are likely pre-war.

This one seems very likely to have been a transfer design too.  How things have changed - few designs from the first fifty years were counted cross stitch, most were embroidery and based on samplers.  Most British patriotic designs now are counted work based on charts, whether cross stitch or tapestry/needlepoint.  Are we somehow more afraid of embroidery (the early designs didn't boast many complex stitches)? Were transfers, cheap to post, the easy way to transport designs then, while now counted charts can be downloaded from the internet or printed in magazines with no need to fiddle with stamps and envelopes?  Is there a preference now, for the exactitude of counted work, and perhaps a flavour of 'getting it right' or 'making exactly the same thing, because I like that sample' ?  I wonder.  I don't know.

A few more images of the second example:

Here is an image of a Festival program, to show you that stylised Britannia-head logo:

I wonder too about the form of this sampler being a map.  It's not just about showing the country, but also I think showing the country which resisted and prevailed in the very recent war, the country that was not invaded, close though they might have come.  Maps, after all, are essential to war and a matter for secrecy during war.  I've tagged this blog entry with wartime even though it's six years after, as the shadow of World War II is undoubtedly present in the reason for the Festival.  Rationing, for example, did not finally end until 1954.

I've seen several other versions of this design, so it must have been quite popular.  Which argues that it must have been in a wide-circulation newspaper or magazine, seen by many, chosen by a number of embroiderers to make in celebration.  It could have been a transfer, but a couple of examples I've been able to look at more closely seem to be on remarkably similar fine evenweave fabric, so I'm more likely to believe it was sold as a transfer already ironed onto fabric.

But I don't know.  If you do, please leave a comment with any useful information or links.

In light of the many coronation embroidery designs from 1937, and the many more coronation designs from 1953, only two years after the Festival of Britain, I find it interesting that at the moment, this is the only Festival of Britain design I've come across.  Was it a category-killer, catching the imagination? Were there few or no competitor designs?

Whatever the story (I wish I knew more), this is a particularly delightful British patriotic sampler, in my opinion.

Map sampler: Kent

As with last week's Leicester and Rutland map sampler, this one uses for the map mainly a sepia range of thread colours, with brighter notes in the compass and the county coat of arms.   This adds weight to my suspicion that this was a transfer design, with the embroiderer making their own choice of threads - probably with a colour version to inspire them, but not a kit to direct their choices exactly.

By this time, with this being the third map sampler I've shown you, you'll have noted the similarity in the font chosen for surrounding counties and the Straits of Dover.  I wonder if someone, or some shop or publication or other source, designed one of these for each of the counties of England? It hardly seems likely that they would have just Leicester/Rutland and Kent in the range.  You'd have a more than fair chance of finding customers in any county interested in stitching a piece representing their home and area.

As ever, if you know more about this design or any of the other samplers and embroideries here, please leave a comment with any useful links and information you can provide, to make this blog as effective and informative a source as possible.

Map sampler: Leicester and Rutland

As with last week's map sampler of the British Isles, I'd date this as early to mid- twentieth century: the label on the back has a twenties/thirties art deco sort of feel, to me.  Rutland as a county was abolished in 1974 and reinstated in 1997, but this sampler predates those governmental choices.

Here's a map from Wikipedia to show the location of Leicester:

The font used in the sampler, especially on the surrounding county names, is very close if not identical to that from the British Isles sampler in the previous entry.  There's a sort of local patriotism in this being stitched, county loyalty.  I can understand why someone would be moved to stitch a document of their part of the world; haven't human beings been doing this forever? All sorts of drawings and artworks and human creations are maps, of one kind of another.  This one adds as pictures a compass (very mappy), a coat of arms? or is it a Celtic knot? and what looks like a ruined castle and is probably a local landmark.  As its focus is more local than the British Isles one, it shows in stitched names a goodly number of towns and villages.

I'm guessing it was a transfer design.

If you can provide any clues about the origin of this design or any other information about it, please leave a comment with any useful links.