Embroidering the Truth

Charlotte Brontë's first sampler

YOU KNOW HOW great it feels when you find a sister (or sister-friend) loves one of your wacky obsessions as much as you do? Well, we’re pretty sure that the Brontës would have shared our obsession with the wonderful opportunities for, um, self-expression through embroidery.

Why? Well, for starters, embroidery as occupation and artform is threaded throughout the works of Charlotte and Emily (and let’s not forget Anne). Needlework was a common occupation for girls in the 19th century (and earlier) and though we’ve read that Emily, in particular, wanted to do just about anything besides pick up needle and thread, it stands to reason that embroidery would figure into their writing. But until recently we didn’t know that examples of their own needlework survive.

Anne, Emily & Charlotte Brontë

All three girls first made simple samplers similar to Charlotte’s, shown above, and then went on to do more complex works–all of them housed at the Brontë Parsonage Museum Haworth, England.

What is it that is so captivating about these plain creations, made by three little girls nearly two centuries ago? I think of my own daughter, learning to embroider a few weeks ago, working so intently to make her tiny stitches line up…and then I think of the wild and free uses of stitchery in our crewelwork slideshow (and the follow-up, here), and I wonder about the discipline and diligence those little Brontës must have needed to stitch those perfect letters and pious verses. No wonder they were not-so-secretly dreaming of Heathcliff and the moors…

If your taste in embroidery runs to the traditional, you could recreate the Brontë girls’ samplers with these kits. Not a needleworker? Pay homage to the Charlotte Brontë with the hand-stenciled T-shirt shown left, available from Etsy seller KM Stitchery (aka Lindsay Keating-Moore.) After all, these sisters, and their work in wool and words, are timeless.

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