Historical Blackwork Embroidery Pattern with Cross Stitch

If you are like me, I first learned how to do cross stitch many years prior to learning how to do blackwork embroidery... and realizing that when I outlined my cross stitch patterns, I was essentially doing blackwork and not realizing it.

So, when I saw this pattern on a 17th century English sampler on the V&A Museum website, I was ecstatic to see blackwork and cross stitch embroidery combined in one pattern.

The original pattern (seen below) can be found on the upper right hand corner of the sampler at http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O70136/sampler-unknown/.

 ("Sampler" at the V&A Museum, London)

Some of the patterns on this sampler are missing their embroidered threads. Thanks to how blackwork and cross stitch embroidery work, we can essentially plan connect the dots to rediscover the original pattern. Please click here to see this.