Embroidery in museums: two exhibitions in October 2026
In October 2026, embroidery is on show in two major museums. One exhibition is just opening; the other closes soon.
New York: "Locating Girlhood", from 9 October
The American Folk Art Museum in New York presents "Locating Girlhood: Place and Identity in Early American 'Schoolgirl' Art", running from 9 October 2026 to 28 February 2027 (exhibition page).
It brings together around a hundred works by girls from the 18th and early 19th centuries: samplers, needlework pictures and watercolours, lent by museums and private collections across the US and Canada. The idea behind the show is to see these pieces as landscape art: they depict gardens, houses, towns and maps of the places their makers lived.
Paris: "Tisser, broder, sublimer", until 18 October
At the Palais Galliera, the fashion museum of the City of Paris, "Tisser, broder, sublimer. Les savoir-faire de la mode" ("Weaving, embroidering, embellishing") runs until 18 October 2026. It opened on 13 December 2025 and shows more than 350 pieces from the museum's collection: clothes and accessories from the 18th century to today, decorated with weaving, printing, embroidery, lace and feathers (museum press kit, PDF).
What a sampler is
A sampler was a piece of fabric for learning stitches: girls stitched the alphabet, numbers and bands of pattern, sometimes their name and the year. Many samplers are worked in cross stitch — the same stitch as today's charts.
How to stitch your own sampler
A sampler makes a good first project: it's small and you can finish it in a few evenings.
- The alphabet. One row of capitals, about 8–10 squares tall.
- Numbers. A row underneath, in the same lettering.
- A border. A simple repeating pattern around the edge: diamonds, zigzags or flowers.
- Your name and the year. Traditionally at the bottom, in the middle.
Graph paper makes it easy to draw the letters and patterns: one square is one stitch. To work out the time and the fabric you'll need, see "How to work out the size and the thread" and "How long does a cross stitch take?".