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

Stormy Friday

Goodmorning!
It's about to pour buckets here in Western Mass. That's a frequent occurrence here in June. I found some great "old" patterns in my stash last night. Dolls, bears you name it, I have it. Some go back to 1993
when I was doing home parties with my friend Vanessa. She painted folk art primitive style and I did
dried flower wreaths and arrangements and dolls, snowmen, angels, santas. Do you remember the vacuum cleaner covers? I was laughing at some of the things that were "hot" in the eighties and nineties. I
remember candlewicking was popular. I did pillows and a marriage sampler. I have a floorcloth that I did in a class. Wow, the classes I went to. Tinpunching, basket weaving, pierced lampshades, painting and I can't remember anything else right now but I know there was more. Surprising to me was that I really didn't start making bears right away. I was a little intimidated I guess. I have the ones that I bought from 1989-on. I took a really cute bear into the birthing room I had when I has having Ashley. He was my "focal point" from Lamaze classes. It worked, too. Having her was really a breeze and I remember the midwife asking me "see you next year" and I told her "I'll be here". Unfortunately, I couldn't have any more children. But I could have birthed lots more babies! Anyway, I digress...
I said in an earlier post that I was uploading pictures to the blog. I haven't found the cord I need
and the memory chip is missing from the camera, otherwise I could just pop the clip in my laptop. I'm going to take pictures of some of the old bears, too. I have quite a few vintage composition Patsy dolls but they are all undressed except for one. I have some vintage baby clothes that I hope will fit at least 1 or 2 dolls. The dresses are the common white batiste type with exquisite sewing details. I'm really getting into the hand sewn needlework techniques. Google eBooks has tons of old needlework books that are all in the public domain. I love reading these books. They range in date from the late 1700's to the 1920's. After that, you take a chance that they are still copyrighted. I see lots of ideas and things to make. The instructions are very limited. They were written at a time when ladies knew how to sew and it is assumed that you know what to do. The terminology is sometimes
unknown in today's time. So I use Wikipedia and most of the time I find the word.
I've been concentrating on learning HTML and code so that I can do additions to my blog myself. I like it so much that I'm going to school online to learn web design.
Well, this is quite enough for today I think. I'll feed the birds and change their water, pick more peony blossoms (they have exploded on this plant) before it really rains. If I come across any good
items from other blogs, I'll post them here as I usually do when I think you might like them.
Warm Regards,
Susan