Last week in this series on developing a spot sampler, we discussed choosing and setting up fabric, and picking out threads and colors. Now it’s time to stitch. There are a number of ways to go about exploring stitches on a spot sampler. You can plop motifs, stitch samples, lines or bands down wherever you want, or you can plan out where to put things ahead of time. On my sampler, I’ve done a little of both, but pretty much, I’ve looked ahead to see where I might stitch the next element.

The first thing we stitched in class were initials on the sampler, to mark them as “ours.” Initials or signatures or first names, or first and last names – all of these work when it comes to marking the sampler as your work. Normally, the signature comes at the end of the work, right? Well, ours came at the beginning for a couple reasons: 1. There are heaps of initials available online in counted format, and since we’re doing a little bit of counted work first, initials seemed an easy and available way to get started; 2. initials are personal, and I think they helped the students form a “personal connection” with their samplers.