Samplers worked with black backgrounds are unique to New England, and this one is designed after a late 18th century Massachusetts piece.

A portly clergyman is depicted strolling between a fashionable lady under a parasol, and a church or meeting-house; with a frisky puppy and a cow incongruously in the foreground, and an oversized prehistoric-looking bird in the tree. The entire background, behind and around the lettering and the scene, would have been filled in with black cross stitches, but for this reproduction The Scarlet Letter have instead worked the sampler on black linen.

The black linen supplied in the kit is evenweave, and not at all difficult to work on, but a helpful hint to make stitching on black even easier is to place a piece of white cloth (a towel or a sheet) in your lap under your work as you sew - better still if you have a Daylight Uplight!

Origin and date: Massachusetts, 1794
Rated: Beginning
Linen count and finished size: 28 count, 16"x12-3/4"
Stitches: Cross stitch only