Sarah Chapple 1831

Look at all of the great little plants tucked here and there on the lawn!

I'm not great at keeping secrets... but I kept this one for a couple of years.  I purchased the Sarah Chapple 1831sampler at auction online and paid a pretty penny for it (well, thousands of pretty pennies). But, oh, was it worth it!!!  Look at those cherry reds and olive greens.  They knock my socks off (first, though, they knock my shoes off...then my socks.)  I love anything with a house on it, a red house is even better.

Sarah's signature ... what a girl!

Two years ago, I taught about my sampler collecting at a Silver Needle retreat in Tulsa, and I did take this sampler there.  The gals at the retreat were pretty jazzed about getting their hands on a chart of this one, so I'm pleased the graphing is done.

Can you believe this wonderful girl was only 11 years old when she stitched this sampler?  There are over 42,000 stitches in this one.  Way to go, Sarah!  She was a diligent stitcher.  This one was tricky to graph, because there were sections of her stitching where a lot of the stitches were off by one thread this way and that way and the other way, so I was constantly having to make adjustments.  The back of the sampler is way neater than anything I ever stitch, and most of the verse is stitched over-one on FORTY-EIGHT COUNT LINEN.  I suspect she may have had super powers in order to see those tiny little stitches.

Sarah Chapple 1831

The sampler is in good shape -- very few areas of loss...not many holes.  The sampler at one point had been GLUED down to a board just along the edges, and there is some discoloration right through the center of the scene at the bottom (you can see it as a dark smudge that runs through the fanciful tree on the left of the house).  I LOVE LOVE LOVE the U-shaped border around the verse!  The urns on either side of the house (in the center) don't match, which I also LOVE!  The flowers in them are different, and I think those motifs would make great little fobs or pincushions.

Here is the verse:

                 On Isaiah c. 40th v. 8th 

And is it so that to life's journey's end
God still will prove my Father and my Friend,
To all my weakness still will bend his ear,
And my most feeble accents deign to hear?
Sweet truth _ the fading flower that blooms today,
May ere to_morrows dawn, have passed away.
The grass may wither, and the flower may fade.
Our brightest hope be wrapp'd in deepest shade,
"But God's own word for ever shall endure,"
It stands to all eternity secure!. 

                         Sarah Chapple
                             Her Work
                        Aged 11 Years
                                 1831

Matching the fabric was tricky. It's definitely a natural linen, 48 count, like I said, but it's got that 200-year-old grime thing going on.  It's not DIRTY, but it's not CLEAN, you know what I mean?  I actually have given stitchers a few options: 40 ct. 18th Century Rook by R&R Reproductions is my top pick, but you can also use 40 count Natural or 40 count Dirty linen by Zweigart.  Coffee-, tea-, or walnut-dyeing these fabrics before you stitch will give the fabric a more authentically grungy look.  The fabric has a definite greenish-cast to it.  The stitch count is 301 by 407.  Here are the FINISHED sizes, depending on the count of linen you're working on:

28 count: 21 1/2" by 29"
32 count: 18 3/4" by 25 1/2"
36 count: 16 3/4" by 22 1/2"
40 count: 15" by 20 1/4"

Here is the fiber list.  There are a number of colors of which you'll need multiple skeins, and that information is here as well.  All stitching is done with one strand, if you're working on 40 count.

Au ver a Soie: 2212, 3724, 3745 (2), 4525 (3)
Needlepoint Silk: 333, 336, 505 (3), 976
Gloriana: Elizabethan Green (2), Holly Berry, Spanish Moss (2), Vanilla
Silk N Colours (The Thread Gatherer): Linsey Woolsey (2)

The Sarah Chapple 1831 reproduction chart is $25.00.  There are a few ways you can get a hold of this graph.  The quickest/easiest way is through my Etsy store.  Click on this listing: https://www.etsy.com/listing/166183862/sarah-chapple-cross-stitch-sampler.  Or, have your local shop order it through Hoffman Distributing or Norden Crafts (both will have their copies in the next week).

You can also order the silks set ($113.00) or the fabric ($50.00 for a half yard of 40 count 18th Century Rook or $38.00 for a fat half of 40 count Natural or Dirty Newcastle linen).

Anyway, I hope you like Sarah's sampler.  I really do!  I purchased another new/old/antique one this week from eBay, and I think that's going to be a secret, too.  Secrets can be fun, I'm learning!