Cross Stitch Antiques | Suir Island (SI) Quaker MARKET 2024

No name or date appears on this sampler, yet there exist clues that point to this being a Quaker sampler stitched by a young girl, perhaps under the age of nine, and perhaps in the late 1700s or early 1800s. Her stitches are not accurately placed at times, and she carries her threads under the linen which show through to the front. The “S” under the top half medallion is charmingly stitched backwards.

The initials appearing on the sampler, SI, in two places, may perhaps indicate the school where the sampler was stitched, and not the initials of the stitcher. The Suir Island Quaker School (SI) was a boarding and finishing school for girls established in 1787 in Clonmel in County Tipperary by prosperous Quaker missionaries and philanthropists Robert and Sarah Tuke Grubb. Studies included foreign languages, science, literature and religion along with the expected classes in drawing and needlework with an overall emphasis on the disciplines of the Quaker lifestyle. Samplings, M. Finkel and Daughter on Irish Schoolgirl Samplers by Maureen Wlodocyk