Sampler 1656 Anna Buckett Band samplers comprise neatly worked rows of patterns suitable for repeating motifs or figural motifs on the long narrow strip of linen canvas. This is the most common type of extant seventeenth-century sampler, and its standard format was established by about 1630. The foundation was generally cut from one complete width of plain-weave linen, so that the selvages are present at what becomes the top and bottom of the finished work, and the sides are hemmed. Polychrome band samplers are typical, although some band samplers combined rows of whitework, cutwork, and needle lace with the polychrome patterns (see MMA, 57.122.368). A band sampler such as this would have most likely been a task completed by a schoolgirl under the supervision of an embroidery instructor of some kind. In fact, a band sampler was usually the first piece worked by a budding embroiderer beginning at about age seven or eight. The complete embroidered works by Martha Edlin, the only extant g