Topsy/Turvey....

This sampler comes from a book I own called "Historic Samplers". This one is by a young girl called Mary Hill. Quoted from the book... "Mary chose fairly bright colors, especially the reds in the top alphabet. There seems to be neither rhyme, nor reason to most of the second and third lines except for the date at the end of the third. It appears almost as if she practiced only the letters she liked. Some of the words run together almost like one unbroken word - so carefully did she employ her allotted space. The spelling of "needle" as nedle may have been an accepted variant in the 18th century, but the letters in the entire line had to be stitched so closely together to get all the words in, one is tempted to imagine that she dropped the second "e" to save space. It is possible too that she may have stitched some sort of code into her sampler. This notion is derived from the three sets of numbers stitched upside down and the three letters executed in unbelievably meticulous eyelet stitches, two of which are upside down as well. It is also possible that a sibling turned it upside down to work on the same piece."

I'm having such a good time stitching this sampler!