Embroidered sampler ca. 1600 Italian This sampler features both colored silk embroidery and white cutwork, in addition to a bobbin lace edging (probably a later addition). Unfinished acorn and oak leaf, flower pot, and geometric motifs are stitched in a light brown thread on the top half of the sampler, while cutwork and drawnwork geometric patterns are present on the works bottom half and top left corner. Cutwork, from which needle lace developed, is a technique in which portions of the ground fabric are cut away and reinforced with embroidery stitches and filled in with needle lace. While many surviving English samplers include lace, cutwork, and drawnwork, very few examples of seventeenth-century lace have been attributed to English manufacture.. Embroidered sampler 221177