Saturday, January 3, 2015

A Jane Austen New Year

First, look what I got for Chrimmus!
Jane Austen themed notecards

Jane Austen guide to life skills

Friends and family obviously got the memo that anything Jane Austen would be acceptable. I will spend the New Year acknowledging universal truths.

So since I was recently bequeathed a large treasure trove of cross stitch materials, I'm in the mood to do my own version of an 18th century sampler. You'll remember that in the past I tried my hand at embroidery using an easy beginner's pattern that more or less looked like an image by the time I was done with it. Okay so embroidery is not technically cross stitching since most of the stitches are running stitches. BUT ANYWAY.

Now I want to try something a little more daring: a sampler. Have we talked about samplers? Samplers were the 18th century girl's professional portfolio. Alongside cookery and maintaining children, an 18th century girl showed her future husband that she was skilled enough to manage the linens of a large household through her sampler. Here's a cool example:
18th Century Sampler by Elizabeth Laidman
Sampler by Elizabeth Laidman 1760. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
The sampler is basically a compilation of the alphabet, plus decorative details, and perhaps an inspiring biblical passage or targeted SEO meta tags. Okay not that last part. But if you want to read more about samplers, the Met Museum has a pretty interesting account.

The funny thing is, cross stitching has had some kind of hipster-y comeback. This is partially due to cool crafty people like Julie Jackson, creator of the amazing Subversive Cross Stitch, and also partially because of hashtags or something.

So what's my sampler going to be? All I'll say is, it involves some Jane Austen and some sass.
Jane Austen giving attitude