Anne Maria Clarke sampler

Here is the latest sampler that I just finished stitching yesterday.  It is a beautiful reproduction of Anne Maria Clarke's sampler stitched in 1824/1825 at age 12 (in the 13th year of age is 12).  She dedicated her sampler as an invitation to LaFayette, who made a triumphant return tour to America.  This was an enormous deal at that time, with the entire country celebrating his return.   The original sampler is in the collection of the Valentine Museum in Virginia.  A good deal of the original verse was missing, and I did not want a blank spot on my sampler.  I spent several weeks researching everything I could find online about Lafayette's visit,  reading books, poetry, and songs.  I was unable to find the original print source of Anne Maria's verse, so I used other phrases that I found that worked with the rhyming and cadence of the verse.  Although Anne Maria did not stitch all of it herself, I feel she might have used these words that I chose.

The sampler is stitched on 35 count linen using cross over one and two, rice stitch, and a queen stitch variation in the border that is my own creation, since I disliked queen stitch.  The reproduction was an online class by Margriet Hogue of The Essamplaire  in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada.