Embroidered sampler Wool sampler by Lucy Grant, embroidered with silk; Sierra Leone; dated 1840. The earliest samplers were reference works for embroiderers. They showed 'samples' of patterns and stitches and recorded how to achieve particular effects. In Europe in the 17th century samplers provided instruction and practice for girls learning needlework. Making a sampler was part of a girl's school education throughout the 18th century and into the early 1800s. By this time embroidered samplers were very often a simple and undemanding exercise. This example from 1840 was made in the West African country of Sierra Leone, then a British colony. It shows how combined lessons in needlework and moral instruction still played a part in British education overseas.