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At last the project is completed! I have a great feeling of satisfaction to see it finished and framed, to me it is a tangible link with the past. As I stitched, I imagined Grace, perhaps 9 years old when she started the sampler (it took me a year and a bit to complete, and I imagine she didn't finish it in a week!), concentrating, trying to get the stitches 'just so'. I remember myself, at about 9 years old, my grandmother helped me stitch a large 'D' in the corner of a hankie for a present for my Dad, and how hard it was to get the stitches even. I imagined Grace sitting by the fire in the warm kitchen of the farmhouse, asking her mother 'I've finished the alphabet Mother, what will I do next?' and her mother answering 'Well, think of the things you love - the flowers, and the birds, and the animals, and think how you can stitch them' and the second row of motifs was the result. Perhaps. I also fancied I saw a patriotic theme in the bottom half, with the red, white and blue, the crown in the centre of the bottom line, and the star images to each side, with the daffodils of Cornwall. Maybe. It was at the end of the Napleonic wars after all, and Lord Nelson was the hero of the day. Anyway, I have had a lot of fun with the project, and now it hangs on my bedroom wall where I can look at it every day, and think of the places and times I stitched - sitting with my aunt when she was so ill, at home in my favourite chair, in Germany last year, visiting my daughter's grandmother.
