THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 31, 1995 TAG: 9505270150
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY ALLISON T. WILLIAMS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SMITHFIELD LENGTH: Long : 132 lines
THE METALLIC GOLD letters are stitched crookedly on the yellowed linen, making the sampler look somewhat out of place among the dozen other evenly embroidered pieces lining the stairwell in Sharon Hines' home.
But the mourning sampler, which Hines believes schoolchildren stitched after the death of a classmate in the late 1800s, is one of the Smithfield collector's most prized possessions.
``These samplers are an inspiration to women like me,'' said Hines, 42, standing in her historic Smithfield home, the Captain John Sinclair House. She lifts another piece of antique embroidery off the wall and points to its tiny, even stitches.
``Look at these stitches! This was done by a 9-year-old named Amelia. I'm still trying to attain the kind of skills to produce work like those young girls did.''
But it's hard to match the stitchery expertise of women who lived in Europe and the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries, an era when most girls between 6 and 13 were sent to school with a needle and thread instead of a slate, pencil and books. Occasionally, boys were forced to stitch as punishment.
But for girls, stitching was an investment in the future. Their years spent stitching samplers taught them the skills they would need as women to run a household: marking linens, decorating collars and cuffs with stitching and making clothing.
``It was the responsibility of the mistress of a household to mark the family's linen sets with numbers,'' Hines said. ``That was to prevent the family from wearing them out so fast.'' Most families had to spin their own cotton and weave it into linen cloth. By then labeling such things as sheets and napkins, Hines said, they avoided using and washing - and wearing out - the same set of linens.
Although many girls learned to stitch from their mothers, most were sent to schools to study embroidery from professional teachers who challenged them with unusual stitchery assignments, Hines says. For example, a teacher might have had her class make darning samplers by cutting a gaping hole in each student's piece of linen. The students then would be required to fill the hole by designing a stitch that could be woven into the linen.
``You can tell by looking at old samplers that some girls enjoyed sewing and others did not,'' Hines said during a recent interview as she showed examples of her sampler collection. ``Sometimes you'll see where a girl pricked her finger and let blood get on the material or where she might have knotted her thread on the front of the sampler.''
These flaws probably drew frowns from parents and teachers.
But the growing number of antique stitchery collectors and designers who reproduce old samplers see such flaws as adding character to the work, Hines said. In fact, designers copying flawed stitchery often replicate the mistakes.
Antique samplers are usually found at estate sales, flea markets and antique shows. Like most collectible items, a mixture of basic economics and pure luck can make an antique sampler cost from ``$40 up into the thousands,'' Hines said.
``Most samplers were kept in the families. They are hard to find today because most are either in private collections or in museums.''
Marking samplers - which hold the traditional alphabet, numbers and perhaps a verse or name - are by far the easiest to find, Hines said.
Other less frequent finds include band samplers, on which girls would stitch a couple of rows of a particular pattern to refer to later when decorating things like collars or napkins, and mourning samplers - like the one with crooked stitching that Hines loves so much - which usually were made in memory of a family member, friend or famous person.
Hines began collecting samplers just four years ago, more than two decades after she began making them. Over the years, she has stitched dozens of them, and they decorate the walls of her home.
Before she started making samplers, Hines occasionally cross-stitched. ``There were few other stitches I knew how to stitch well.''
But then a book club sent her the selection that changed her artistic life: a book about samplers. She immediately went out, bought a sampler kit and finished it in less than a month.
``I couldn't put it down. I love making samplers because you use so many different stitches.''
These days, she uses graph paper and designs her own patterns, producing samplers that tell a story about her own life.
One of her favorites, ``Memories,'' hangs on a dining room wall and depicts the life she shares with her husband, Sonny, and daughter, Anne. It has a tiny couple, whose hair is stitched from a piece of Hines' own golden hair. They're near a tiny boat, which symbolizes the family company, Hines-Farley Offshore Yachts Inc. And the family's initials, zodiac signs, pets and an old house are among the many symbols stitched into ``Memories.''
Over the last year, Hines said, ``Memories'' has one awards in regional and national stitching shows. Last year, it won second place in a national competition at Woodlawn Plantation in Arlington and both first place and best in show at the regional Golden Thimble Show in Hampton.
Her daughter, Ann, now 25, shares her mother's love of stitching samplers. They are members of the Tidewater Sampler Guild and get together at least once a week to stitch and visit.
But there is more to the Hines' world of making and collecting samplers than the satisfaction of recreating or designing an intricate stitch pattern.
A pull of the needle, thread slipping through linen behind it, evokes thoughts, words, memories from women who lived long ago. Their concise, deft stitchery on clean, new linen - now yellowed, antique - left messages of life, love and homespun wisdom to travel on down through generations of family and friends.
And, sometimes, into the hands of people like Sharon Hines.
Her antique sampler collection is a monument to the young voices from the past whose needlework has captivated her.
And by stitching her own ``Memories'' and the dozens of other samplers that hang throughout her home, Hines has created a legacy of love to pass on to future generations of her own family.
And, who knows? Maybe one of her samplers will find its way into the hands of some future collector, not yet born, who will marvel at the stitchery and memories woven into linen by a woman who used to live in Smithfield, Va. MEMO: [For a related story, see page 9 of The Citizen for this date.] ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
[Color Photo]
STITCHES IN TIME
Sharon Hines
Staff photos, including cover, by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Sharon Hines sews a sampler in her historic Smithfield home, the
Captain John Sinclair House. ``I love making samplers,'' she says.
A sampler featuring the Smithfield Baptist Church.
Years spent stitching taught girls skills they would need as
homemakers.
This sampler features Sharon Hines' home, the John Sinclair House.
by CNB