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| Susannah HILL's sampler |
Kennis Kim's book Conserving, Preserving and Restoring Your Heritage included some pointers on caring for samplers and made it clear that it was a professional and not a DIY job. Time to find a conservator.
I started at the Institute of Conservation (ICON) web site and struck gold immediately. Less than an hour's drive away was The Landi Company, specialists in textile conservation and restoration. Ann and I duly made an appointment to deliver the sampler to them at their workshop located in the Stable Courtyard at Burghley House, just outside Stamford. The surroundings were impressive enough; equally impressive inside the workshop was the wide range of strange-looking and specialised equipment.
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| Stable Courtyard, Burghley House |
When Sheila Landi emailed us to say the sampler was ready, we went to collect it. What a difference! The colours were now clear and vibrant, the background clean and bright, and the sampler correctly aligned behind the old Victorian glass. A full report described the process of removing the sampler from its frame, cleaning and repairing the sampler and remounting it back in its frame.
Behind the sampler she had found a small fragment of text and carefully mounted it on a material backing. Unfortunately the text was not complete and a transcript was not possible, though the name (Hill) is quite clear.
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| Fragment of text found behind the sampler |
So a wonderful item of family history has been renewed for future generations.
"No heirloom of humankind captures the past as do art and language."
Theodore Bikel
