May 2024 Meeting

President Eve called the meeting to order and welcomed everyone.   New members and guests were invited to share a little about themselves.   We had 65 members in attendance via Zoom.

Treasurer’s Report was provided.   Payments and deposits were reviewed.    An informal audit of the Treasurer’s records was completed in April with no errors found.    We currently have 215 paid memberships.

 Conservation Committee -   Applications have been sent to 16 organizations.   In the next four to six week, Marnie will be reaching out to these organizations she sent applications to in case any have questions.   If you have a local society that houses samplers and could use assistance in restoration, let Marnie know.  The deadline for submission is September 30th.  

SAL—Members should be working on the May Assignment, Band 5, the bargello.  Linda suggested starting with the 3rd color row down so you can complete a full row.  Filling in above and below once the initial row is completed.   Hint - always come up in the empty hole and down into the full hole when doing bargello.

Secret Stitcher— Susan provided a great PowerPoint on the Secret Stitcher program.   The current Secret Stitcher year will end August 31st.   Between now and then, participants should send their last package and should reveal themselves to their secret stitcher.    To sign up for the next year’s secret stitcher exchange, a link to a questionnaire/sign up form will be in the next member newsletter.  You will need to sign up by August 31st.   

Current participants continue to share items they have been receiving on Facebook.  If you do not have a Facebook account, please pass your “thank you” on to Susan H and she will post it to the DVHSG FB page.   Thank you Susan for doing such a great job spear-heading this for our members. 

Retreat -  The Fall Retreat will be the same weekend as the November Meeting Day, (November 8th, 9th, and 10th). Members in attendance at the March meeting voted unanimously on this date for the Retreat.    More information on sign ups, etc. will be in a future member newsletter.

Designer of the Year - Our designer of the year for 2024 is Brenda Gervais of With Thy Needle. Don’t forget to keep track of any pieces that you finish throughout 2024. 

June—(Zoom) Evalyn G. will give a presentation on how silk is created.

July—(Zoom) Beth Seal of Summer House Stitche Workes will discuss Susquehanna Samplers. We are still working out the details for purchasing sampler patterns/kits from Salty Yarns.  Watch your email.

August—(Zoom) Caryl C. will give a tutorial on finishing pin drums.

September—(Hybrid)Teresa Miller of Teresa’s Primitive Treasures will demonstrate a project she has designed for DVHSG. Away stitchers can participate. In-person participants will have paint available, but away stitchers will not have the paint included in their kit. The instructions will include what you need to have available. The order form was sent with the latest newsletter to members and is due July 20th.  A photo of the project is attached and is also on our Facebook page.  We are working on the details for a possible trunk show.  

October—(Hybrid) Garage sale - Bring your unwanted stash to the meeting.  You set the price of what you want for each item.  DVHSG would like ‘sellers’ to consider donating a percentage of their profits from sales to the Conservation Fund.   Any unsold items can be taken home  OR if you choose, they can be left and will be taken to Fireside for sale on eBay with the proceeds going to the Conservation Fund.

November (2024)—(Hybrid) Kim Young of Sassy Jack’s will be teaching the  the Mabel Tuke sampler.  More information and sign ups will follow.   This meeting is the same weekend as the semi annual fall retreat.  People not attending the retreat will be able to participate in the project by Zoom.

December (2024)—We will have our annual smalls exchange. The small should be sampler-related, but not holiday themed.  Please include your initials, the guild initials DVHSG, and the year on your piece.

For 2025 Stacy has lined up the following teachers/presenters:   Jackie duPlessis, Catherine Theron and Dawn Ronningen.  

Big thanks to Stacy S for her continued great programming efforts.   Please let Stacy know if you have an idea for a program.

President Eve called everyone’s attention to Marsha’s C. recent Facebook posts.   Marsha is the founder of the Guild and has been posting history of the Guild.  

Today’s Program

We were delighted to have Cynthia Steinhoff speak to us on her vast sampler collection.   Some 400 antique samplers at last count!   Cynthia has a vast resume. She is a stitcher, sampler collector and needlework researcher.  She especially enjoys  all things about genealogy.    Among her credits are a Masters of Library Sciences and Masters of Business Administration.  She is currently the Director of the Anne Arundel Community College.  

This is Marie Aull from New Castle, Delaware.   Born in 1799 and stitched in 1809.  In 1810 she moved to Missouri where she married in 1830.    She died at age 92.

Cynthia uses geography as her primary course for selecting a sampler she wishes to add to her collection.   She has mainly samplers from PEnnsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Hersey and New York.   She does have a few from New England and in her early days of collecting acquired some English as well as Scottish samplers.   She also considers the date the sampler was stitched as part of her criteria.   Her samplers are mostly dated between 1790 and 1850.  She oldest is a sampler dated 1730.  The styles she prefers are Quaker samplers, marking samplers, family registry samplers (helpful with her genealogy interests) and PA German samplers. 

Cynthia also likes a sampler that can tell the story of the stitcher, the teacher and perhaps the school the girl may have attended.  She also gravitates to a sampler that may be similar to something she already has in her collection.

Purchasing samples can be tricky.   Cynthia makes her purchases through antique dealers, auction houses and personal referrals.  

Marking sampler by Dorcas Bolden, 1807.   The Bolden family arrived in the colonies settling in Virginia.  Slowly family members moved into Maryland and then into Delaware. 

Rachel Wiley, 1815, New Castle, Delaware.   She lived with her family on East Third Street in a house build in 1738 which is still standing in Olde New Castle.

Emily Foxwood, born in 1834 in Brandywine Hundred, Delaware.  This is an undated marking sampler which we can assumed was stitched in the 1840’s.   A sampler stitched by her sister is in the collection at Winterthur.

Ann Vail, 1794.   The use of ‘boxes’ for text was probably her teacher’s style.  She was from Pencader Hundred in New Castle County, Delaware, stitched in 1794.

Beautiful close up of the flowers in Ann Vail’s sampler.

Elizabeth Dunn, stitched in 1811, aged 11.   This is in the Quaker style but not your typical Quaker design.   She married a man from Cecil County.

Below, Elizabeth Dunn, circa, 1850’s

Next are some samplers from the Baltimore area.   This is Sarah Miller, daughter of Rev. Thomas and Sarah Miller of Elliott City, Maryland.  This is referred to as an “Eyeglass” sampler because of the way the gate is stitched.

Close up of gate. See how it resembles a pair of eyeglasses?

Another “eyeglass” sampler with the gate by Elizabeth Kollinger, born 1808.  This sampler is not dated.

Virginia Husky, age 9,  marking sampler, stitched in 1841

Mary Elizabeth Startzman, of Baltimore, age 9, 1845, another marking samplers

Blanch Welch, Bel Air, Hereford County, Maryland, 1859.   Simply beautiful grapes and vines, pineapples and floral urn.

Henrietta Maria Hall, Ann Arundel County, Maryland, 1827. Another sampler with a beautiful border.

Lanah Baum, PA German Sampler, Hummelstown, Daulphin County, Pennsylvania.   Her ancestors were the founders of Hummelstown.   Lanah included the name of her teacher, N, Farney

Louisa Baum, born 1819, stitched in 1827, also of Hummelstown, PA,  Louisa also notes her teacher as  L. Kean

Cynthia is a valuable resource for all things sampler.  She has given presentations on samplers at numerous guilds, Winterthur’s needlework conferences, and the Sewell C. Biggs Museum in Dover.   An avid genealogist, CYnthia also does presentations to genealogy groups.   In addition for her work for Anne Arundel Community College she also has to her credits work on several books on samplers.   Including, but not limited to:

Contributed and copy-edited Wrought with Careful Hand: Ties of Kinship on Delaware Samplers with Dr. Lynne Anderson and Dr. Gloria Seaman Allen

Co-Author with Dr. Gloria Seaman Allen, Delaware Discoveries:  Girlhood Embroider, 1750-1850

Cynthia also wrote Delaware Schoolgirl Sampler, an essay hosted on M. Finale and Daughter’s website.  

It was a wonderful program.  Cynthia seems to really enjoy sharing her collection as well as her knowledge of samplers.  She is truly an asset to the world of samplers.

Next meeting - June 8 - Zoom only - Presentation on the silk worm and silk production.  

April 2024 Meeting

Our meeting was called to order by Evalyn C. and she welcomed all present  including those on Zoom.

Committee Reports were shared - 

Treasurer’s Report - Payments and receipts totals for the month were provided.  Outstanding is the balance due to Jackie duPlessis for teaching and kit fees as well as travel expense.  

IRS FORM 990, which will maintain our non-profit status with the IRS, has been filed for 2023.  

We currently have 212 members who have renewed/joined for  2024.   The member roster has been updated and will be provided in the April Newsletter to members.

Conservation Committee -  The committee has forwarded applications for the funds to 16 organizations, such as Winterthur, Hagley Museum, and the Concord Museum. If you have an organization you would like the Committee to consider, please reach out to Marnie B.

SAL—Members should be working on the March Assignment, Bands 3 and 4, as well as the  adjacent top and side borders. 

Secret Stitcher—Members continue to share items they have been receiving on Facebook.  If you do not have a Facebook account, please pass your “thank you” on to Susan H and she will post it to the DVHSG FB page.  This year’s program runs until August.  Members sign up for the next year will be in August to participate from September to August of 2025.

Retreat -  The date for the Spring Retreat is the last weekend in April (26^th-28^th). If you didn’t sign up you can check with Stacy S. to see if spots are still available. 

Designer of the Year - Our designer of the year for 2024 is Brenda Gervais of With Thy Needle. Don’t forget to keep track of any pieces that you finish throughout this year. 

Upcoming Programs

May—Our May meeting has changed.  It will be Zoom only.  Our original presenter had a conflict.   Stacy was able to schedule Cynthia Steinhoff will join us to discuss some of her samplers.   Cynthia is only available via Zoom.   The Board determined that members present at a live meeting would not be able to enjoy the Zoom presentation in person due to lighting in our meeting room.  Therefore, for the ease of everyone being able to view the presentation, the board decided to make this an all Zoom event.

June—(Zoom) Evalyn G. will give a presentation on how silk is created.

July—(Zoom) Beth Seal of Summer House Stitche Workes will discuss Susquehanna Samplers. Additional information on purchasing sampler patterns will be forthcoming.

August—(Zoom) Caryl C. will give a tutorial on how finishing pin drums.

September—(Hybrid)Teresa Miller of Teresa’s Primitive Treasures will demonstrate a project she has designed for DVHSG. Away stitchers can participate. In-person participants will have paint available, but away stitchers will not have that included in the kit. The instructions will include what you need to have available. The order form was sent with the latest newsletter to members and is due July 20th.  A photo of the project is attached and is also on our Facebook page.

 October—(Hybrid) Garage sale

 November (2024)—(Hybrid) Kim Young of Sassy Jack’s will join us to teach  the Mabel Tuke sampler. More information and sign ups will follow.   This meeting is the same weekend as the semi annual fall retreat.   Membership at the meeting when this was discussed (71 members) voted to have the meeting on the same day and at the retreat). People not attending the retreat will be able to participate by Zoom.

 December (2024)—We will have our annual smalls exchange. The small should be sampler-related, but not holiday themed.  Please include your initials, the guild initials DVHSG, and the year on your piece.

Today’s Program

Jackie DuPlessis of It’s Finally Finished joined us to teach two wonderful projects. She gave us a brief history of her stitching journey as well as her coming to America and settling in the Boston area.  She is from South Africa and told us of the limited availability of supplies as well as resources when she grew up there. She also shared and discussed some of the samplers she has acquired.  Jackie requested we not share any close ups of her samplers as they are potential new charts for her.  They ranged from Berlin work to Darning Samplers to more standard samplers.  Those present had ample time to look at them up close.

The project for the morning was the beautiful Margaret Towns Sampler. In the afternoon, she taught how to make a paper mock-up of the Cherry Berry Sewing Roll, which was based on the design of the morning sampler, although stitched one over one rather than over two. We were so pleased to have Jackie with us and look forward to her hopefully joining us again at a future date. If you want to follow her on Facebook, look for JackieIFF. If anyone wants to purchase the morning sampler kit, please contact Stacy S. a.s.a.p.  It really became a group effort when Jackie was showing those on the Zoom class how she does the pierced ladder stitch.

 If you have ideas for future programs, please reach out to Stacy. 

We had Show and Tell displayed but it was not done formally so I don’t have names and patterns for everything.

This is by Patrick.  It consists of 56 individual leaves stitched in different needlepoint stitches finished and assemble in a wreath.   The patterns were publish 5 or 6 every other month in a needlepoint magazine.  A big accomplishment for sure!

This is a Jeannette Douglas Pattern

A Jeannette Douglas Pattern Fall into Autumn

Magnificent sampler stitch by member Marsha C.

A Blackbird Design, stitched by Linda D for her grandson

Another piece stitched, front and back by Linda D for her grandson

Stitched by Linda D.

And to continue the Linda D show, this design from La-D-Da

Project bags from Susan L.

Jewelry Box Redo

Next Meeting - ZOOM Only - May 11th