Needlework Quotes and Sampler Verses: Part Two

11. Amidst my learning and my care
Nothing can equal God most dear
Nor ought with him my heart to share
Quick as my fingers move this thread
Under just rules do act with speed
In wisdom paths still may I thread
Giving to virtue constant heed
Love to be good and therefore wise
Youth finds in these the greatest pride

~~ (verse from Ann Quigley's sampler of 1814) ~~

12. Oft as thine eye shall fondly trace
Those fine lines I here exact
Whate'er the time where'er the Place
Remember me my Friends

~~ (from a 1784 sampler) ~~

13. Take your needle, my child,
and work at your pattern.
It will come out a rose by and by.
Life is like that --
One stitch at a time taken patiently and
the pattern will come out all right like the embroidery.

-- Oliver Wendell Holmes --

14. How much to be prized and esteemed is a Friend
On whom we may always safely depend
Our joys when extended will always increase
And griefs when divided are hushed into peace

~~ (from a 1799 sampler) ~~

15. The canvas thus in colours laid
Gives a just emblem of mankind
Thus education good or bad
Shows on the canvas of the mind

~~ (from an 1827 sampler) ~~

16. Young Ladyes fair when youthful minds incline
to all that's curious, innocent, and fine
With admiration let your worke be made
the various textures and the twining thread
then let your fingers with unrivaled skill
Exalt the Needle, Grace the noble Quill

~~ Thought to be From an 18th Century Schoolgirl Sampler, Boston --

18. "Ah deary me! what needles! - well really I must say,
All things are sadly altered - (for the worse too) since my day!
The pins have neither heads nor points - the needles have no eyes,
And there's ne'er a pair of scissors of the good old - fashioned size!"
The very bodkins now are made in fine new-fangled ways,"
And the good old British thimble - is a dream of other days!"

~~ Excerpt from Mrs. Harris's Soliloquy, While Threading Her Needle - By Lady Dufferin ~~

19. A fair little girl sat under a tree,
Sewing as long as her eyes could see;
Then smoothed her work and folded it right,
And said, "Dear work, good night, good night!"

-- Lord Houghton --

20. There is just one person,
Who still thinks I'm the best,
Who even after all these years,
Has yet had time to rest.
The one who toils to pave a road,
Down which her child may safely tread,
And sews that child a quilt of dreams,
Then drapes it 'round her head.
~~ Author Unknown ~~