Although I did want to start all of them (and who knows, maybe I will start another one or two in the near future...), I decided to stitch Scarlet Letter's Ann Kirby Sampler from 1790. It is a pastoral scene, which apparently was quite fashionable to stitch at the time. This design has a shepherd and shepherdess surrounded by a white clover meander border. I am missing a page of the instructions. I have emailed The Scarlet Letter to see if they will send me the missing page, but another stitcher kindly sent me a brief list instructions. My kit came with two copies of instructions #8-10, but none of instructions #1-7! You can see the entire sampler here. It is stitched on 35 count fabric and will measure 15-1/4" x 22-1/4" finished. I opted for the cheaper kit with DMC, though of course it would have been nice to stitch with silks. Still I think I am going to enjoy working on this! It seems as though the 17th-century is as far back as samplers seem to go (at least in terms of reproductions to stitch). Surely there must be samplers from the 16th-century? I know Mary Queen of Scots was a needleworker, but perhaps samplers did not come into vogue until later. Wouldn't it be nice to have a sampler stitched from each century? And one from each country as well? Hopefully my attention will stay on this one for a while, though!