Gussets, plackets, damask darns, run-and-fell seams: the language of plain-sewing is anything but plain.
Our great-grandmothers were expected to master an immense variety of sewing techniques - and to demonstrate their abilities by producing small samples - of button-holes, darns, patches, and all the other more esoteric skills - which might be combined to form plain-sewing samplers.
I'm fascinated by these samplers – labelled “modest” and “unpretentious” by those who write about the elaborate embroidered samplers that we're all familiar with – and I'm using this website to provide a meeting-place for others who are similarly fascinated. You may even own some, disregarded in the back of a drawer; or want to seek out the places where you can see a collection of them; or you may be interested in the insights they provide to the world their makers were living in.
Our great-grandmothers were expected to master an immense variety of sewing techniques - and to demonstrate their abilities by producing small samples - of button-holes, darns, patches, and all the other more esoteric skills - which might be combined to form plain-sewing samplers.
I'm fascinated by these samplers – labelled “modest” and “unpretentious” by those who write about the elaborate embroidered samplers that we're all familiar with – and I'm using this website to provide a meeting-place for others who are similarly fascinated. You may even own some, disregarded in the back of a drawer; or want to seek out the places where you can see a collection of them; or you may be interested in the insights they provide to the world their makers were living in.