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In 2005, my parents gave me The Sampler from my dad's side of the family, which my great-aunt Ruth Matthews Wiggins passed down to us in the 1970s. The threads are faded. It's a little hard to read and almost impossible to photograph, but it's very important to me.
There's a poem on the sampler that says:
I've often wish'd to have a friend
With whom my choicest hours to spend
To whom I safely might impart
Each wish and weakness of my heart
Who might in ev'ry sorrow cheer
Or mingle with my grief a tear
For whom alone I'd wish to be
And who would only live for me
And to secure my bliss for life
I'd wish that friend to be a wife.
This linen sampler was made by Elizabeth Hodge, who used two shades of green that are still pretty vivid to work the outside border and the border designs that separate her alphabets (upper and lower case letters) and the poem and dates she stitched on her sampler. Elizabeth worked most of it when she was about 9 years old. After her marriage at age 18 in 1824, she went back to stitch in the last 2 digits of the year when she became a wife (in a slightly different shade of red).
The sampler is about 18 inches square, and there's a good 5 inches of blank space between the last stitched date and the bottom border. Maybe she intended to use that space to fill in the birth dates of her children, maybe not. Maybe she always meant to sample different embroidery stitches there, or fill the space with some specific design or motif.
I don't know about you, but I know a lot of people who beat themselves up about things they don't get finished. Maybe Elizabeth felt the same way, maybe not But this unfinished sampler has been kept and cared for by members of my family since 1815. And even if my great-great-great grandmother had bought it at a garage sale, I would still treasure it, even though it appears to be unfinished. Because to me it represents the process of learning. That process doesn't always fit exactly into the framework we expect, or the timetable we would choose. We all know that, but sometimes we forget.
If you've been feeling guilty about things that might be perceived as "unfinished", just remember to call them "samplers" and respect the process of learning that they represent The colors might fade a bit over time, but I hope your passion for learning never does.
Now, that's a legacy.
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