STITCHES IN TIME: Art and History of Embroidery

Perhaps American History in Embroidery would have been closer to the content -- and concept -- of this leisurely look at the work of many nimble fingers which preserved the past (and near-present) in needlework. Here are historic events and portraits of national heroes, family records, maps and rural scenes; here are the samplers that little girls stitched to learn the alphabet and show their accomplishments: all contribute to a record of daily life and some are documents in their own right. The last section offers general instructions, a compendium of embroidery stitches, and an introduction to applique; much of this duplicates, less fully and imaginatively, the information in Irene Miller's The Stichery Book, but it can be considered here as a follow-up (do thou likewise) to the preceding examples. The early samplers may well inspire emulation of an imaginative sort; the contemporary selections, representational rather than decorative, are less likely to spur creative effort.