MAMAN 1880-1890

The time of expensive, complicated to produce, and hand-coloured needlework patterns is long gone. Most companies no longer exist and the stitchers have hardly use and leisure to work larger objects. But the machine-made, coloured needlework patterns - mostly in form of a leporello - are used to stitch small objects, such as a handkerchief, a needle book, children's shoes, a prayer book cover. They often have been carried out in poor print: The colours are overlapping the grid lines, they are hardly to distinguish. Usually, such patterns were an extra when shopping in a needlework shop or by purchase for very little money.

Plenty of those patterns are damaged, split or preserved incomplete after more than 100 years. I am very grateful to present to you the reproduction of the back side of "PAPA", an almost complete cross-stitch pattern from France. It lacks only the cover sheet and the reverse side. It is executed with my colour choice and thus in my interpretation.

In case the represented tower is the Eiffel Tower, the pattern might be compiled after 1885.