George V & Mary : silver jubilee sampler, 1935

This silver jubilee sampler for George VI and Mary, from 1935, is similar to another silver jubilee sampler I blogged about here.  It borrows many elements, such as the coach and horses and wording layout and border, but perhaps this stitcher had a smaller piece of fabric or just wanted to make it her own version.  It measures 13 1/4 inches x 15 1/4 inches.

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

Elizabeth & Philip : wedding sampler

A 1947 embroidered sampler commemorating the wedding of Elizabeth and Philip.  It features a verse from Patience Strong (who also had verses on birth samplers for Anne and Charles) and various English countryside motifs in the border.  Measures approx 50cm x 33.5cm.  Likely to have been sold either as a transfer or as fabric with the design already printed on.

If you know any more about this design - eg. where it was published/offered for sale - please do leave a comment.

Post-war sampler, 1947 : Freedom, Justice, Peace

An embroidered postwar patriotic sampler, dated 1947, with guardsmen and symbols of Britain including cottage, castle and church and the Union Jack, celebrating the victories of 1945 and the war's end.

The frame measures 10 1/2inches by 12 1/2inches, so this image gives you a sense of the design size.  I would guess this design to be based on a transfer.

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.

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: 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.

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: 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.

Elizabeth II: coronation: from transfer to sampler

So imagine you have a book of transfer patterns like this:

and another one like this:

What could you do with it?

Perhaps this.

From a private collection.

It's perhaps a pillow sham sort of size.  Maybe a table centre?  Not big enough for a table cloth, but too big for a single table mat for dining (and such things are more likely to be decorative than useful).  It does seem more likely to have been displayed flat, rather than vertically.  The fringe is woollen, in patriotic red and blue.  Perhaps it was a child's work? - one motif at a time and the satisfaction of seeing each complete to spur you on.  Even though patterns/transfers are being used, the individuality of the maker comes through in the choice and placement of designs and the nature of the stitching itself (more room for variation in embroidery than the more charted confines of cross stitch or tapestry).

It was rather fun to put the two together and see the origin/source of the stitched designs.

The collector sourced this sampler from the US.  Perhaps a post-war British migrant, nostalgic for home?

Sadly, like most of these British patriotic samplers and embroideries, there is no stitcher's name or any other clue to their identity.

Elizabeth II: coronation traycloth with crown and flowers

A little traycloth commemorating the coronation of Elizabeth II, that was on eBay.  I do wonder with these if they were used or just made and put away for a 'good' occasion that never came.  It looks as though it was done using a transfer design.

If you can shed any light on this - was it a transfer printed traycloth which came with the delicate crochet edging already worked, I wonder? - design source, who sold this etc: then please leave a comment.

Elizabeth II: coronation embroidery with Coach, Abbey and Palace II

In the first blog entry called

Elizabeth II: coronation embroidery with Coach, Abbey and Palace

I showed this example:

Here's another example from a recent eBay auction, demonstrating as this usually does that the individuality of the embroiderer shows through, even with the same pattern:

...and a third example:

You can see a fourth example on the blog Linens and Royals, by clicking here.



If you know of the source of this design - I'm guessing it was a transfer, so it could have come from a newspaper offer or magazine or a thread/pattern company - please do leave a comment.

Anne: birth sampler, 1950

From 1950, and featuring a verse by Patience Strong, this sampler commemorates the birth of Princess Anne.

I've also seen verse by Patience Strong featured on a wedding sampler for Elizabeth and Phillip, and a birth sampler of similar design for Prince Charles.  I know that the Charles one was a transfer, so no doubt this one was too - embroiderer's choice of evenweave fabric and final thread colours, level of skill depending on the embroiderer.

Who was Patience Strong? According to Wikipedia, Winifred Emma May (4 June 1907 – 28 August 1990) was a poet from the United Kingdom, best known for her work under the pen name Patience Strong. Her poems were usually short, simple and imbued with sentimentality, the beauty of nature and inner strength.

Hmmm, 'imbued with sentimentality' is being rather polite, really.  She's got the rhyme thing happening...

Isn't it nice that Clarence House gets a run, instead of Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace?!!

I've never seen a birth sampler for Andrew or Edward, in this style or any other.  Or wedding samplers for either, come to that.  Although I'm guessing that checking the popular British cross stitch magazines at those date would have been likely to have had some kind of charted design.  (Topic for future research - unless you have the mags and could look them up and tell me...). 

There is a picture of another version of this sampler here, from the end of this blog entry here.

And another version of this sampler:

And another:

If you know any more about this design - where it was published/available from etc and so forth - please do leave a comment.

Elizabeth II: Christmas message 1952

In 1952, following the example of her father, George VI, the new Queen Elizabeth did her first Christmas broadcast, which included the words in the embroidery above.  This was an example from eBay this year.  As with other embroideries (as opposed to cross-stitch designs), the examples I've seen show the variations produced by embroiderers with different levels of skill and who have made individual variations to thread colour (I don't think it's always fading from sunlight - if you look at the letter E on the side in these examples, it's in a single colour in one, and more than one colour in another).  I suspect this must have been a transfer, as the examples I've seen are on different colours of evenweave linen/cotton, from light cream to deeper beige/brown.

You can read more about the Queen's 1952 Christmas broadcast on her website (click here).   That page has links to all her Christmas messages.

Here's another version of this sampler:

...and another...

...and another, that had a couple of detail photos too..

 

Christmas Greetings!  I plan to continue documenting British patriotic samplers in this blog into the future.  It fascinates me how many there are, and how many people have chosen to make them.  Particular thanks and greetings to Sylvia at Linens and Royals for her much appreciated comments and for being so inspiring with her amazing collection of British patriotic samplers.

If you know more about this design eg. where and how it was published, please do leave a comment.

George VI: 1937 coronation chairback & 1953 Yeoman of the Guard tunic

I can understand that this Yeoman of the Guard tunic from the 1953 coronation of Elizabeth II was a 'professional' item, so to speak: worn by a participant on the day -

Nice embroidery on it, too (it was on eBay: can't imagine parking this in a corner of my parlour!).

But here's a chairback embroidery from George VI's 1937 coronation:

...which is like a window on a world now gone.  I can't imagine this was done for use on the day at the ceremony: my guess is that it was done to adorn an armchair in someone's parlour.  The embroidered side visible on the back of the chair, the plain side to prevent Brylcreem or hair oil or pomade or whatever were the hair unguents of the time from soiling the fabric on the chair.

Instead of a bouquet of flowers, it is a patriotic statement: the king and queen's initials, the floral emblems of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, with the crown over all and the coronation date.  Where many British patriotic samplers have fussy detail, this one is a simpler and strong graphic statement.

I've never seen an Edward VIII version of this (ER would be the intials, I presume, for Edward Rex).  I find the font particuarly evocative of its time, slightly olde-worlde-calligraphic in style.  It's not a small design, either - the design occupies an area of around 12 inches square.

I have seen a couple of versions of this, with slight colour variations which would imply that this was a transfer design which individual embroiderers interpreted in their own colour selections - either because they liked their choice better, or they used what thread colours they had easily to hand.

Here is another version that was found as an embroidery, not as the long rectangle of a chairback.  You can see the lighter fabric and changes in thread colour.

I wonder what else was in that patriotic parlour? And if this chairback (and any others, if the embroiderer made a pair) were used for display/special occasions, or at all?

If you know any more about this design - where it was published, who designed it, whether it was a transfer - please do leave a comment.

George V & Mary: jubilee sampler, 1935

From 1935, a sampler celebrating the silver jubilee of George V and Queen Mary.  It appears to be stitched from a transfer.  The one above was in an online auction.
Here is another version of the same sampler from a different online auction:
:

There are subtle differences in the colour choices of the two embroiderers (eg. in the thread colour for the names of the king and queen).  Transfer patterns may or may not have specified thread colours, but stitchers would also be likely to look at their existing threads and use something close in colour because they had it, or different to the illustrated design's thread colour because they preferred it.  Transfer designs for patriotic samplers were sometimes available as kits, but could also (and I think, at this time period, more often) just be a magazine illustration and a transfer either with the magazine or available through the post, with the final thread choice being at the embroiderer's discretion.

These sorts of cross-stitch transfers used one simple stitch, and so involve less skill and, often, less variation than designs requiring even an easy range of embroidery stitches (eg. satin stitch, stem stich, back stitch etc).  It's interesting to compare them to present-day designs, most of which are sold as kits with fabric and thread provided.  The fabric is generally very evenly woven (aida or, more rarely, linen) and with the threads provided, the impulse to change colours is lessened.  Two versions of the same modern day cross-stitch kit (eg. from William and Kate's wedding) would be far less likely to have any variation than even the subtle changes evident in the two designs above.  The fabric imposes precision, and the thread uniformity.  The two embroiderers represented above, while they stitched the same sized transfer, chose their background evenweave fabric (linen, cotton or whatever they chose) and threads.

If you know where this design was originally published, or have any other information about it, or any other photos of it, please do leave a comment so the information can be added to this blog entry. 

Elizabeth II: coronation brooches

In an online auction, this lot consisted of this Briggs Transfer coloured cover and inside, the transfers to embroider the brooches - a Queen's head, flowers of Britain and some of the Commonwealth, and two buildings - Windsor Castle and ?perhaps the Tower of London?.  I would assume that it also had thread colours and perhaps stitching instructions, but some transfer pattern books of the time did not.

A smaller alternative in time and scale for the embroiderer who can then wear her patriotism on herself, rather than on her wall.

If you know any more about this or have pictures of examples to share, please leave a comment.

Elizabeth II: Coronation sampler with red coach

While last week's coronation sampler featured a heavily embroidered gold coach, the examples I've seen of this one generally feature the coach done mainly in red.  As a whole, it's a bit more lavish/whimsical/embellished than last week's design.The photograph often looks as though it's from a newspaper - I wonder if the design was originally from a newspaper?  I've seen a couple of different photos used in this design, but this is the one I've most often seen.  This image is from a past eBay auction (the item sold). 

My guess is that this was a transfer design, and not sold as a kit, as I've seen variation in colours used on it which imply that while there was a colour picture for guidance, the final choice was the embroiderer's.

If you know where this design was published, or any more information, please do leave a comment.