PROGRESS ON THE POLLY DAGGETT SAMPLER

Hi, Primmies -

I've made some progress on the Polly Daggett Sampler. I started in the upper right corner and I'm working right to left. I'm on the third
row:

Remember that the sampler has been charted to include Polly's mistakes and changes to thread thicknesses among other things.
As I read through the chart it's becoming obvious that Polly was not interested in needlework, at least not in working on this sampler!

Polly most likely was taught to stitch by a governess or in school.

We can assume this by the fact that a child would stitch her

teacher's full name or the teacher's initials somewhere in the sampler, as Polly did. She included the letters "A" and "J" near    the bottom of her sampler. 

Polly crossed stitches whichever way she felt like it and often did half cross stitches and left threads loose and hanging. She often crossed the wrong threads in the linen.  Perhaps she was thinking about the unrest in the colonies. If Polly stitched this sampler around the age that most girls were when they worked on

them, ten years old, it would have been 1770 when she stitched this.

That was the year in Boston that  British soldiers shot into a crowd

on March 5th; this has been referred to as The Boston Massacre.

Polly was born Mary Daggett, in a town called Holmes Hole (which is now Vineyard Haven) on the island of Martha's Vineyard.

She was born in the year 1760 and Polly was an affectionate nick-

name. The people of Martha's Vineyard had erected a liberty pole

on a hill that represented to the British their independence. When a British ship named HMS Unicorn arrived in the harbor her captain spied the pole and insisted that the people deliver it to the ship the next day. They needed it as a replacement spar for the ship. An island legend tells that Polly and her friends packed gun-

powder in holes that they had carved in the pole and blew it to pieces.

Polly married at the age of 19. Her husband was Peleg Hillman, a master mariner. He was quartermaster of a privateer ship named

the Oliver Cromwell. Polly only remained married for 10 years, she

divorced Mr. Hillman and lived out the remainder of her life in

the village of Tisbury. She was known as "Aunt Polly" to the island children and much loved by them.

'Nite, Primmies -

 Susan

We Dyed Last Night

Hi, Primmies -


I received my order of 25ct. linen and threads for the
Polly Daggett sampler. Here is a photo of it stitched:

Photograph copyright Allen D. Bragdon Publishers, Inc.

This is my scan of a picture from the book of the stitched sampler. The colors in this picture are much lighter than the actual colors used by Polly. I am using DMC floss

because the colors are a truer match to the colors used by

Polly, who stitched with silk. With the exception of one or

two samplers in the book, the floss used is DMC. Two

strands of DMC are the thickness of one strand of silk. It

will be stitched over two threads with a few exceptions

where I will use three or four threads and leave a stray

thread hanging here and there as Polly did. All of her

"mistakes" are charted as in the original which is going to

make this an authentic reproduction. Tomorrow I will

give you some of Polly's background and where she lived

when she stitched her sampler, and what was going on

in the colonies during her time. Today I'm going to show

you how I prepared the linen to "age" it to match the

antique original at the Dukes County Historical Society in Martha's Vineyard, Edgartown,Massachusetts.

I used Tea #1 dye recipe from the historic samplers

book. I was supposed to use Coffee #2 recipe but it called

for the coffee to stand for four weeks and I don't have time

to wait for that. I have to get stitching! So I improvised:

Boil enough water in your kettle to half fill a large pan or

pot. Use 5 or 6 bags of any breakfast tea and allow the tea

to steep about 10 minutes

While the tea steeps wet the linen in plain water if you prefer the dye to be fairly even. If you want the dye to

take unevenly put the dry linen in the dye pot, the

uneven color that some antique samplers have

Biggie wanted to supervise this stage of wetting the linen.

This is the cat that has to drink running water from the

faucet, not the bowl. He likes the shower, too. At this point he was bored...

Squeezed out the tea bags and into the dye bath it goes

Leave the linen in the dye pot for ten minutes and then I

checked the color, trying to match the color of the original.

(Tea dyed linen is supposed to dry one shade lighter than

when wet) I like the color, I think it will be a good match to the original when dry. The next step sets the color so it will

be colorfast in case you want to wash it when you are done

stitching

add one teaspoon of alum. I had some in the spice cupboard

from when Mom used to put up crock pickles. It's in the spice aisle at the grocery store

Mr. Glen Oaks wanted to be in on this so he added the alum and stirred it into the dye bath with the fabric still in there.

Stir it up well and you can leave the linen in the dye bath for another ten minutes if you need to for a correct color match. The mister didn't think it was quite dark enough the 

first time so we went with the extra time

We decide that this is a close match so I'm drying the linen.

I rolled it up in a towel because for this sampler I don't want wrinkles and uneven color lines. Remember, I'm trying to match the original.
Save your tea dye bath because if you decide the linen should be darker you can dye it again but you need to add

another teaspoon of alum to the dye bath each time you

re-soak the linen.

. Tomorrow the fun starts!

Susan