Sampler by Elizabeth Hobbs, 1844.

Linen fabric, linen and cotton threads, 418mm x 185mm.

The shape of this sampler is a link back to the older style of ‘band’ samplers of the seventeenth century when a piece of cloth was cut off the end of a length of fabric for embroidering. It has a simple design and a two-tone colour scheme, though not the traditional Scottish one of red and green. Top and bottom are contrasting border patterns and a simpler series of patterns divides up the various rows of the rest of the work. Alphabet and number sequences are followed by a verse from the Book of Ecclesiastes, solemnly exhorting the 9-year-old sewer to Remember thy Creator in the days of thy Youth. Her signature, age and date are beneath the verse, then an incomplete number sequence followed by two crowns and a heart.

Elizabeth Hobbs was born circa 1835. Little is known about her save that she married David Jones, a gardener and a widower, at Knox Church, Dunedin in 1863. She had a daughter Caroline at Waikouaiti in 1866. Caroline later became Mrs Jennet but we have not been able to trace her further. The sampler was donated to the Museum by a Mrs Crombie.