It's the less structured, more personal samplers that really get me, like this one, completed by an Anne Titchaner, age 13, in June of 1865. And here it is especially the phrase that runs across the center that made me fall for it: "When my mother and father foresake me, then the Lord will take me up," with the dark blue of the second half of the sentence making it pop as if to announce that the Lord has indeed taken our Anne to heaven! And then these wonderful needlepoint figures, mother and father I imagine, plus dog and birds and flowers and a blob with halo that might just be God! Everything about this makes me glad, including the spelling of "done" as "Don."

Sampler measures approx 8" x 6". I used one piece of archival tape to mount it to a piece of white board and put it in this old carved wooden frame that I think suits it really nicely: 13 1/4" x 11 1/2". Toning and fading as obvious with one small hole at cente right but stable and not especially fragile and to my eye the aging is all to the good. Frame is in great shape with nice warm dry patina and wired for hanging.