Fabric: 46 count Antique Button Dark by Mason Line Floss: 100/3 silk by Au Ver a Soie, conversion to NPI and DMC Stitch Count: 386 wide x 411 high Design Size: 16.78 wide x 17.87 high Stitches Used: cross stitch over two threads

This sampler is an original design based on the layout of eighteenth century Irish Quaker samplers with the lettering and sampler motifs taken from a Mountmellick Irish Quaker sampler in the collection of Cross Stitch Antiques, Elizabeth Martin circa 1789. The town names at the bottom are the ancestral homes of the designers four Irish grandparents.

The first alphabets on samplers in Ireland seem to appear in the early seventeenth century and were probably a school exercise. Simple lettering skills were practiced with a view to the neat marking of laundry. In a large household