Back in 1868, in rural France, imagine what a treat it must have been for a young girl to be handed a whole bunch of silk colors (17 in total) to play with when completing her sampler. Louise proceeded to playfully change thread color for each element of her border, for each letter, and sometimes used two colors for a single letter. The result is a joyful and sparkling "explosion of color" and is a real treat to stitch.

Letters used for the 3 first lines - a full alphabet and the stitchers signature and date of completion - are all the traditional letters used for marking house-hold linen, therefore excellent practice for young Louise. These letters went unchanged over at least a century as they were taught and transmitted from mother to daughter over generations. These letters virtually unchanged are already cited in the Didierot & D'Alembert's encyclopiedia of 1871 and are known as the linen-maid's alphabet.

The original sampler is part of Meriem Chauvet's collection, she is the designer behind Couleur Tourterelle, and likes to reproduce, and painstakingly rechart, some of the samplers of her collection, matching every original color.

While our stitcher left little clue about her place of origin, Meriem Chauvets points to a few clues that could point to the Occitania region, a culturally distinct region of Sourthern France.

At first glance the sampler seems to differ from other French samplers of the time, all with a prediominantly religious theme, but as Meriem Chauvet points out, Louise did also include, among the many floral and animals,  a number of religious symbols. 

Regarding stitching, there are a couple of  shifted cross stitches, used to provide symetry in flower bouquets. The design should therefore ideally be stitched over 2 threads, except if you accept these 2 motifs to be slightly shifted.

Reproduction Sampler stitched using Soie d'Alger silk from Au Ver à soie (AVAS) or DMC, with cross stitches worked over 2 fabric threads on 40ct linen. Size 7.7 x 8.1 inch (19,5 x 20,5 cm).