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In her diary entry for March 20, 1848, Patty Bartlett Sessions (1795–1892) recorded an unusual note: she had begun to work on her sewing sampler, an item she had not touched for thirty-eight years. She writes simply, “commenced to finish my sampler that I began when I was a girl and went to school.” Traditionally, decorative embroidery samplers both showed a young woman’s mastery of needlework and indicated that she was prepared for a genteel marriage.Since sewing samplers were usually created by unmarried girls, in 1812 Patty Bartlett put away her unfinished sampler when she married twenty-two-year-old David Sessions.While she had begun her sampler as a sixteen-year-old girl in Maine, Sessions did not finish her sampler until she was fifty-four years old and living in the Utah territory, where she had settled as an early member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which she joined in 1833.For Sessions, as with many girls who learned embroidery, the sewing sampler was a socially acceptable site of self-expression where opinions and feelings could be depicted and displayed.Through samplers, women like Sessions were able to sew their own approbation or dissent without rendering themselves vulnerable to public censure. In other words, samplers function as a circumspect site for testing ideas as well as stitches and patterns.

Recently, scholarship on sewing samplers has become significantly more popular; each successive article encourages future scholars to both recover extant needlework and to more closely examine already discovered artifacts. In 1989, Rozsika Parker argued that scholars should read samplers as works of art rather than as mere crafts. Since then, scholars have increasingly analyzed needlework, including Sessions’s sampler, as artistic works, discursive texts, and/or rhetorical objects.Thus far, criticism of Sessions’s needlework has largely fallen into two camps: first, Sessions’s biographer, Donna Smart, reads the sampler alongside Sessions’s extant diary, viewing the artifact primarily as a memento. Second, feminist scholars, including Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and Aimee E. Newell, have employed a material culture framework to read the sampler as a discursive text recording Sessions’s life and interests. This essay argues that, in addition to being a memento and serving as a repository of her interests and lessons, Sessions’s sewing reveals how she adapted generic sewing patterns to create more personal and idiosyncratic expressions of self. Sessions’s sampler, among other things, expresses her dissatisfaction with her marriage. After she and her husband David converted to Mormonism, he took two additional wives; he was married to Rosilla Cowen from 1845–1846, then to Harriet Teaples Wixom from approximately 1849 until his death in 1850. By manipulating marriage motifs, Sessions expresses her frustration with her husband’s frequent absences, inattention, and plural wives. As a result, the sampler records some of the growing pains caused by polygamy in the early LDS Church. Moreover, the sampler—which depicts a hierarchy of values that prioritize hard work—also establishes the pride Sessions felt at being the primary source of income for her family. By focusing on the symbolism in Sessions’s embroidery, this essay makes a case for recognizing the manifold interpretive possibilities posed by symbolic needlework. In other words, it is the sewing itself, not just the circumstances of its construction, that makes her sampler meaningful. 

Many of the features of Sessions’s sampler initially appear to be conventional motifs; however, this does not mean her sampler is without interesting significance. Many young women, including Sessions, employed well-known sampler conventions in order to compose meaningful embroideries. Common motifs on Sessions’s sampler include borders, five lines of brightly colored alphabets and numbers in print and cursive, a couple dressed in wedding garb, flowers, trees, and animals, including a dog, horse, rooster, and deer or hart.Samplers also typically include at least one verse, though two or more are common.At the bottom center of Sessions’s sampler is the primary “text,” a verse in four lines: 

The mind should be inured to thought 
The hands in skilful labours taught
Let time be usefully employed 
And art and nature be enjoyed.

Though most samplers contain many of these seemingly generic motifs, each individual sampler nevertheless displays the preferences of the creator/author, and even the most apparently conventional samplers employ symbolism that can be read discursively (see Figure 1).

While informed by and engaging with accepted conventions, the process of individualization makes samplers a site of self-expression. Sampler designs were influenced by the teachers of embroidery schools, where students like Sessions would copy motifs from a master set provided by a teacher.Despite relying on patterns, most girls chose the colors, pattern arrangement, and verse(s) to be included on a sampler.As a result, samplers, as pieces displaying a student’s mastery of a wide variety of stitches, can be compared to written essays displaying a student’s mastery of course content. Like essays, each sampler will have similar component parts, yet will also still be a unique production of the student-author.Thus, even the most seemingly generic verse, such as the second verse found on Sessions’s sampler, “Patty Bartlett is my name and with my needle wrought the same A.D. 1811,” is unique in every rendition as each student will stitch her own name.Sessions’s sampler, is of course, unusual in that her identifying verse continues with a mid-life update: “1848 recommence again this 54th yr of my age.” The sampler is also marked with her married name, “Patty Sessions.” While Sessions’s sampler is certainly exceptional because she continued the project later in her life, the needlework was already discursive when she began the project at sixteen.

The seemingly conventional imagery in samplers is, in fact, what allowed women like Sessions to encode potentially subversive messages in a manner that is, nevertheless, circumspect. Heather Pristash, Inez Schaechterle, and Sue Carter Wood observe that needlework enabled women to compose messages that were “deeply controversial, or in direct conflict with authority” in a form that would be legible only to viewers who are extremely familiar with the symbolism in play.Sessions’s sampler exemplifies this argument, as the possible messages she encoded in the marriage scene continue to resist definitive interpretation. The discreet indications of female voice that can be gleaned from sewing artifacts reveal, as Joy Ritchie and Kate Ronald argue, that women throughout history have used any “available means” to “invent a way to speak in the context of being silenced and rendered invisible as persons.”Often lacking the authority to publish or speak publicly, women marked household linens in order to reveal their ownership of those items and to confirm their existence to posterity.By viewing sewing pieces as discursive texts, we find that women have never been completely silent. Where there are gaps in female histories, alternative texts such as sewing samplers can fill the void. 

Sewing Symbolism and Discursive Multiplicity

Though Sessions’s sampler has been the focus of some critical attention, by considering the symbolism in play I suggest an alternate interpretation of her embroidery to that which is currently dominant—i.e., that the sampler is primarily a memento recording things Sessions enjoyed.Because the meaning of symbols is often slippery across time and cultures, it can be difficult to establish a definitive meaning for a given embroidered image. Furthermore, as Patricia Andrle and Lesley Rudnicki observe in their compendium of American and European sampler symbolism, over time “general awareness of symbolism may have diminished. With the proliferation of designs in pattern books and those motifs copied from other samplers, it is questionable whether or not the sampler maker was aware of the significance of a motif or if it was used for merely decorative purposes.”Despite these challenges, however, scholars can and should interpret symbols on samplers. The fact that this genre of sewing is formulaic suggests that the symbolism would have been known by many sewing instructors, who would have passed on the knowledge to female students. Andrle and Rudnicki trace the meaning of many dominant sampler motifs back to biblical symbolism, suggesting that devout Christian needleworkers, such as Sessions, would have been familiar with the meanings ascribed to particular motifs. Indeed, part of the purpose of Andrle and Rudnicki’s book is to make the symbolic code of embroidery legible to modern needleworkers so that they may choose “symbolism appropriate to the theme that they are employing or the occasion they are commemorating with their sampler.”Given that these authors see the discursive potential of modern samplers, it is reasonable to believe that samplers from earlier centuries are likewise intentionally employing symbolism to convey a theme or message. By drawing on Andrle and Rudnicki’s sampler symbolism dictionary, on Hope B. Werness’s The Continuum Encyclopedia of Animal Symbolism in Art, and on the nineteenth-century language of flowers, I interpret the symbolism on Sessions’s sampler, and I argue that the consistency in her choice of symbols corroborates my reading.However, I also acknowledge that, as with any discursive texts, there are multiple possible interpretations of Sessions’s work. Thus, rather than offering a definitive interpretation of the sampler, I encourage further scholarly engagement with this, and other, embroideries. 

I argue that Sessions’s sampler conveys a sense of her priorities and feelings in adulthood and that her rhetorical choices regarding motifs, size, and color show how she manipulated the form to temper her messages. Many scholars, including Smart, have argued that the images depicted represent things Sessions enjoyed and that “some of her passions are expressed in the laden fruit trees, flowers, and animals that decorate the center section.”The main verse has also drawn significant critical attention; Smart focuses on the verse, positing that it “even more passionately describes her philosophy and, in truth, what made Patty work.”Newell pushes this interpretation further, noting that the verse “seems to reflect her older stage of life, cherishing the value of industry and counseling an appreciation of hard work, art, and nature.”While I agree with Smart and Newell that Sessions likely enjoyed the images depicted, the motifs and text on the sampler also suggest deeper possible meanings.

For instance, the verse reveals a great deal about Sessions’s personality and priorities throughout her life. The first line of the verse, “the mind should be inured to thought,” suggests that intelligent thinking is a learned activity, not natural to all human beings equally but something that should be sought. The next two lines, “the hands in skilful labours taught / let time be usefully employed,” argue that hard work is important; this straightforward message is unsurprising, as Sessions was, indeed, an incredibly hard worker. Shortly after her marriage to David, Sessions began taking in weaving work to supplement the family income; before long “she had all the weaving she could do ‘fetched from ten to twelve miles.’”With her weaving skills Sessions was able to create “a lasting home industry, one that provided a lifelong means of income and self-fulfillment.”Sessions was also industrious in other fields. In addition to her knitting, midwifery, and weaving she raised her family, gardened, and sold fruits and vegetables. Sessions was widely known as a midwife;legend has it she delivered a reputed three to four thousand babies.Once in Utah, she raised an orchard and several gardens on her property. She both employed, and sold produce to, her neighbors. She was a shrewd businesswoman and a wise investor. Smart summarizes Sessions’s business acumen, arguing that she was “an economic producer” and that she “was an industrious member of her community’s workforce, harder working, more productive, and more successful than many of her male contemporaries.”Sessions’s pride in her work ethic is written on her sampler for visitors to see.

However, the verse on the sampler reveals that hard work and learning were not Sessions’s only priorities. She also valued leisure activities. The last line of her verse, “and art and nature be enjoyed,” emphasizes pleasure rather than work or learning. Through this line Sessions suggests that appreciating art and nature is important but that such luxuries should come after learning and work—hence its place in the final line of the verse. The hierarchy she has created provides a means of interpreting her priorities: learning, work, fun. The verse may also explain why she chose to complete her sampler: after working hard for thirty-eight years and building a new home in Utah, she wanted something artistic to enjoy that would commemorate her life, celebrate her values, and decorate her home.

The verse is not the only part of the sampler that portrays Sessions’s values; the animals depicted supplement the verse by highlighting Sessions’s work ethic, faith, and pride in a socially acceptable—even humble—manner. First, the horse represents “masculinity; vitality; pride” or “ardor.”From what we know of her history, Sessions clearly possessed a strong power of endurance. Fueled by her religious passion, she established seven homes as her family moved progressively west with the Mormons. She also provided for her family through her midwifery, orchards, and weaving. Sessions’s ardor, strength, and vitality were defining features that allowed her to care for her family. In addition to the pride and strength represented by the horse, the rooster represents “vigilance [and] pride.”Similarly, the dog represents “loyalty and protection.”These qualities can be understood as maternal, especially considering her protective role as a mother. Furthermore, her sense of loyalty to her husband is especially relevant, as she stood by him despite his neglect. Because three of the main animals depicted represent pride, we can infer that the images were chosen intentionally. Sessions used the animals to display her sense of honor for her accomplishments in a socially acceptable manner through needlework.

The final animal on the sampler, the deer or hart, signifies another aspect of Sessions’s life that she was proud of: her faith. However, because Sessions worked on her sampler at two different points in her life, pre-marriage and in her post-marriage middle age, the deer has multiple possible meanings. In needlework deer often represent the “wisdom of God: gentleness; pride and manliness; solitude” and “Christ as the love of God on Earth.”In Sessions’s sampler, all of these interpretations are legitimate possibilities. First, religion was always important to Sessions. Before she converted to Mormonism she belonged to the Methodist Church, which she joined at the age of twenty-one in 1816. As with her family’s later conversion to Mormonism, Sessions was the first in her family to convert. Given her passion for religion, she very likely intentionally included a depiction of God’s wisdom, or of Christ, in her sampler. Second, “solitude” seems logical, as Sessions was often separated from her husband. Especially after the couple arrived in the Utah territory, David would either stay out tending the crops or would live primarily with one of his plural wives. As a result, Sessions was often lonely—a message that is reinforced by her marriage imagery in the center of the sampler. Third, initially seeming least likely, “pride and manliness,” is also a legitimate interpretation of the deer. There are two ways pride and manliness can be interpreted: that she was hoping to find a proud and manly husband, or that she was expressing her own pride in her accomplishments. As she began sewing before her marriage, Sessions might have imagined the deer as representing the ideal qualities she hoped to find in her future husband. However, Sessions may also have been aware that her motivation, in addition to her intellectual and spiritual strength, made her an exceptional person. 

Sessions’s pride and sense of her own significance were not without cause. Her life was certainly remarkable, as she was one of the earliest settlers in the Utah territory and was friends with key Mormon figures such as Brigham Young and Joseph Smith.She was also viewed as exceptional by the Mormon community, as she fulfilled a prophecy two days after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. In her diary she records, 

put Lorenzo Youngs wife Harriet [Harriet P. Wheeler] to bed with a son [Lorenzo Dow, Jr.] the first male born in this valley it was said to me more than 5 months ago that my hands should be the first to handle the first born son in the place of rest for the saints even in the city of our God I have come more than one thousand miles to do it since it was spoken.

The prophet may have been making a safe bet; after all, is it really surprising that Sessions, a popular midwife, would deliver the first Mormon baby in the Utah territory? Nevertheless, the diary clearly shows that Sessions felt the import of the prophecy and of her role in it. She may, therefore, have worked a sense of pride into her sampler, regardless of her age, when she stitched the deer.

Though the dog, deer, and horse represent masculinity, pride, and ardor, because she stitched the animals in shades of brown the potentially boastful messages are tempered; though Sessions was expressing ideas that can be interpreted as conceited, her color choices indicate that she was, at worst, circumspectly violating social norms. The color brown signifies “humility, poverty [and] renunciation.”Sessions’s apparent awareness of sampler conventions and symbolism allowed her the space to compose a text that is full of pride, yet, because of the medium and color choices, the tone of the sampler is modest rather than arrogant. The argument could be made that the color choice is insignificant, as all of the animals are, in fact, brown in real life. However, not all of these animals are, necessarily, brown. The dog, horse, and rooster could have been realistically depicted in several other colors. By choosing to stitch the animals in brown, Sessions softens the imagery to render it more socially acceptable. Though she privileges images that convey her sense of loyalty, pride, and vitality, Sessions is, as we will see with her manipulation of marriage motifs, careful to ensure that her sampler is never too radical or rude.

Anti-Marriage Motifs: Polygamy and the Young Couple 

Perhaps the most interesting image in the sampler is, as Ulrich notes, the young couple. Because the sampler provides little direction for the eye, the viewer’s gaze is initially drawn to the center of the piece: the husband. The young man is placed in a garden setting full of lively animals and colorful plants. With his bride dressed in white just to his left, this appears to be, as Ulrich notes, “pastoral embroidery,” but it is not, as she suggests, “a celebration of conjugal happiness and rural life.”The female figure towers over her male partner, suggesting that the power in the relationship is held by the wife, not by her husband.If we assume the two figures represent Sessions and her husband David, the emphasis on the female figure seems appropriate considering what is known of their relationship. Through the marriage imagery on her sampler, Sessions expresses her profound dissatisfaction with her husband’s behavior.

One reason that the male figure may be smaller than the female figure is that David, among other flaws, was frequently absent. As a result of these absences Sessions might, unsurprisingly, not have viewed him as the most significant—and therefore the “largest”—person in her life. For example, in 1848 David lived with Sessions for about half of the months of May and June, spending the rest of the time away at the family farm. She records in her diary on May 13: “Mr. Sessions come home from the farm been gone a week goes again tomorrow.”He returns a few days later, staying from May 18 through May 30. He then leaves for the farm again “to keep the crickets off of the crop.”

He did not return until June 22, and though the date of his departure is not listed, he clearly left again, as Sessions notes his return on July 1.While David was gone, Sessions carried a considerable workload. She was left alone to care for her daughter-in-law, Mary Sessions, and the grandchild Mary had recently birthed. On Tuesday, May 9 she writes, “I now have to take care of Mary and her babe and do the rest of the work her breasts very sore and her babe very troublesome I have been up 2 and 3 times a night with it ever since it was born.”She also had to worry about a leaking roof, repeated frosts destroying her garden, and lost cows. In addition to all this, Sessions delivered thirteen babies in May and June.Considering her heavy workload, it is likely that Sessions considered herself to be the keystone holding the household together while David was away seeing to the crops.Sessions’s pride in her ability to manage on her own, without David’s presence, is expressed through the prideful imagery on the sampler, as well as through the size disparity between the human figures.

Not only was Sessions’s marriage complicated by her husband’s long absences, but David’s polygamy also caused considerable conflict. Though Sessions was a devout Mormon, she was nevertheless unhappy when her husband took plural wives.David married his second wife, Rosilla Cowen, on October 3, 1845. In her diary, Patty Sessions records the emotional fallout that occurred after David married Rosilla.At first, Rosilla remained behind in Nauvoo with Patty’s adult son Perrigrine and his wives, while David and Patty travelled to the Salt Lake Valley. Rosilla travelled later with Perrigrine’s family, arriving in Utah on June 22, 1846, four months and ten days after Patty and David.In her diary, Patty expresses at best mixed feelings toward Rosilla. She writes, “I came home found Perrigrine and family and Rosilla there we was glad to see each other. . . . I feel as if I should be happy but alas they are not and sorrow fills my heart.”The construction of this entry is interesting for a few reasons. First, Sessions identifies her son, his children, and his wives as family, thus isolating Rosilla. Then, when expressing her unhappiness, she separates herself from her feelings. Rather than being “but alas I am not” happy, she writes “alas they are not” happy, presenting her feelings as though they belong to someone else. By distancing herself rhetorically, Sessions is able to isolate the feelings that bring her into conflict with her husband, as he presumably loves Rosilla and is happy to see her. Sessions’s unspeakable feelings seem to be expressed through the size of the couple in her sampler instead. 

Sessions’s unhappiness upon Rosilla’s return is understandable; suddenly her husband, whom she had to herself for four months, was spending most of his time with Rosilla. To add insult to injury, Rosilla did little of the housework, leaving Sessions to pick up the slack.However, what seems to have bothered Sessions the most was that David treated her harshly and largely abandoned her in favor of Rosilla. In a series of entries from early July 1846, Sessions records her agonizing treatment after Rosilla’s arrival. She writes, “Thursday ^9^ I have slept but little [blotted out: Mr Sessions has said many hard things to me] I feel as though my heart would burst with grief.”Sessions’s misery continues for several days, and she notes every day that David was hard on her and that she was barely able to eat or sleep. On Saturday and Sunday, July 11–12, she records with difficulty, “^I [blotted out: slept alone]^ eat my breakfast but I am so full of grief that there is no room for food and I soon threw it up I can only say I feel bad [blotted out: lay alone part of the night] Sunday 23 I feel some better he has promised to treat me well [several entries stricken out and ink changes color: I lay alone].”Despite David’s promises, he and Rosilla did not begin to treat Patty well. For example, on Sunday, August 2, 1846 she records how David and Rosilla stranded her after inviting her to accompany them to the river. In her diary she recalls, “Mr Sessions took Rosilla and ^asked^ me to go to the river then took her and waided [sic] across the river left me on this side was gone 2 or 3 hours.”In light of such treatment, Sessions’s frustration and pain are certainly understandable. After months of struggling with Patty, Rosilla apostatized and returned east in December of 1846. However, even when Rosilla finally left, things were not instantly better for Patty. On November 29, David stayed with Rosilla one last time; when he returned the next day, Sessions writes that he “did not speak to me when he came home.”Three days later, on December 3, Rosilla left for Nauvoo.Sessions does not specify if David was speaking to her again, though at the very least we know someone informed her of Rosilla’s departure. Regardless of when David and Patty got back on speaking terms, her sampler, completed almost two years later, shows she had not forgotten how David and Rosilla had treated her.

Indeed, the marriage imagery at the center of the sampler depicts a tumultuous relationship at best. Though the scene appears to be Edenic, and though the nature imagery surrounding the couple seems to create an elegant pastoral scene, the motifs on the sampler suggest Sessions was still dealing with the aftermath of David’s marriage to Rosilla. For instance, the orange tree, a classic marriage motif, represents “virginity because it bears fruit and flowers at the same time. It represents the virgin as both virgin and mother.”If sewn before her marriage, the virginity imagery represents Sessions’s “ripeness” for matrimony: She was ready to bear children—the fruit of her union. If sewn later in her life, the virgin mother imagery is still appropriate, especially after David married Rosilla. After his second marriage, David did not share Sessions’s bed regularly, leaving Sessions feeling lonely. Shortly after Rosilla arrived in Utah in 1846, Sessions writes on August 1, “I still feel very lonsome [sic],” and her feelings of loneliness continued to grow as David withdrew from her.Sessions notes David’s hurtful inattention again on November 4, 1846, a few weeks before Rosilla leaves forever, writing that “he has lain with her three nights [. . .] I go to bed know not what to do.”Sessions may have considered herself to be in a pseudo virginal state, already a mother but no longer sexually desired. She thus becomes a virgin-mother figure, nurturing her children, grandchildren, and community, but lacking any passionate consummation. Sessions may have felt isolated both in her sexual roles and in her familial roles. As a result of her tumultuous relationships, the orange tree motif may have continued to resonate with her over the nearly forty years she carried and created her sampler. 

In addition to the orange tree, Sessions manipulated many other marriage motifs, suggesting that her marriage was problematic both before and after David married Rosilla. Indeed, what is most surprising about the couple on the sampler, besides their sizes, are the things they are not doing. If they were holding hands, or were holding a wreath between them, the figures would represent a bride and groom, marriage, and marital fidelity.Yet the couple is clearly not holding hands, and the wreath is above them and off to one side rather than being held between the couple. In fact, the wreath is almost as large as the male figure and looms oppressively over his head. Similarly, if the male figure were holding a dove, it would likewise indicate marital fidelity.In Sessions’s sampler, however, the dove is depicted as flying away from the couple, suggesting that the fidelity she expected to find had departed. Rather than depicting the female figure as a dutiful bride holding her husband’s hand, her hands are empty at her sides, and next to her is a flowering plant, which represents “the symbol of life; Mother Earth [or] Mother Nature.”Though the female figure is clad in white, suggesting a virgin bride, this is not a typical marriage scene.By rearranging standard motifs, Sessions uses her sampler to reveal the flaws in her marriage. Perhaps unable to speak openly about her dislike of polygamy, or about her dissatisfaction with her husband, Sessions turned to sewing as a tool for communicating transgressive truths. 

Conclusion: Filling the Silences 

Sessions’s sampler reveals her hierarchy of life priorities, displays her conflicting sense of pride and humility, and reflects her troubled relationship with her husband. Yet we cannot know for certain when she stitched each element. Though Newell makes an interesting argument that the top of the sampler was sewn when Sessions was a girl and that everything under her note about recommencing the sampler in 1854 came after, there is no concrete account detailing which elements Sessions stitched at any time, or any changes she may have made to the original pattern.As a result, we cannot, for instance, argue that when she began her sampler the male figure was larger than the female and that she changed it later. Such a reading is insupportable. Nor can we argue that she added particular images later in her life rather than when she originally started the project as a teenager. Whatever the date of any actual motif, we can conclude that in 1848 when Sessions completed her sampler, she approved of the images. The gendered imagery, evidence of religious fervor, her sense of pride in her exceptionalism, and her critique of her marriage were intentionally part of her final product. Sessions intelligently, knowingly, and subtly manipulated standard sampler conventions to create a representation of her life on the linen.

Yet, despite her avid pen and prolific needle, Sessions is often still silenced through misrepresentation by the scholars who are attempting to recover her voice. Overlooking Sessions’s needlework texts completely, most scholars focus exclusively on her journal, which, while an important text, does not convey the full narrative. For example, Elizabeth Willis argues that “although it would be impossible to define the precise impulse that led Patty Sessions to end her journal, hers is clearly a gradual shift toward speechlessness” because her diaries end several years before her death.Indeed, many scholars interpret the end of Sessions’s diary as the end of her life.However, the diary and extant needlework function as complementary documents recording Sessions’s life even after she stopped writing.

Unfortunately, little is known about the last four years of Sessions’s life besides a family anecdote about her final days: she knitted socks but made so many dropped stitches and errors that her family members unwound the yarn each night. Sessions therefore knit the same yarn over again each day.Newell argues that her family unraveled the yarn because they “respected her work” and realized that highly flawed projects would be very difficult and frustrating for Sessions to knit.Even if her family’s gesture of undoing was well founded, it is, at the very least, editing and revising the Sessions archive. I contend that her family’s actions actually function as an all-too-common act of textual erasure. Because socks are less likely to be kept as family heirlooms, especially poorly knit ones, Sessions is effectively silenced. Because women often worked, and composed, in media that was functional rather than fancy, many artifacts do not survive because they wear out or are discarded after their purpose is fulfilled. Yet Sessions was not consumed by silence; she simply changed mediums, privileging knitting over writing. Considering Sessions’s sewing as readable text allows us to find her voice even after her diaries end. Sessions’s diary and needlework are two forms of writing that worked toward the same goal: to record her life.

After her death, Sessions’s son Perrigrine found one last piece of needlework hidden inside W. Beach’s The Family Physician, a medical book from Sessions’s personal library.The loose cross-stitch reads “Remember Me.” Here is an insight into Sessions’s motives for writing her diaries and finishing her sampler that should not be overlooked: to be remembered. This second embroidery suggests that Ulrich, Newell, and other scholars are not far off the mark; Sessions’s sampler is a memento, or what Newell calls a life review, but it was also an intentionally constructed text incorporating a variety of messages.Placed in the context of her life, needlework, and writing, Sessions’s sampler shows her hope for the future but also reflects pieces of the disappointing reality of her marriage.

As discursive texts, samplers provide valuable and often unequaled insights into female experiences, opinions, and thoughts. Through Sessions’ sampler, we can see how needlework can both reinscribe and resist cultural norms, and how sewing, as Maureen Daly Goggin notes, has always “been a significant cultural practice of meaning-making.”Girls and women expressed their opinions about life, marriage, politics, religion, and the world through samplers because they were unable to write about such things more explicitly elsewhere. Because samplers were viewed by a limited audience, women could incorporate images, texts, and ideas that may have been considered subversive if composed or published in a more public form.

Reading Sessions’s sampler allows scholars to glimpse how women have historically composed needlework while also exposing how they negotiated the perceived limitations inherent to employing genteel, domestic skills rhetorically. After all, needlework compositions, which were largely confined to domestic spaces, could only reach a limited audience and were required to function within specific generic constraints. Yet the fact that these texts would not be widely distributed is what made them safe sites of expression for women. Because sewing samplers and other needlework would be safely restricted to the sewing kit or the sitting room, women could freely express their thoughts—whether mundane reflections on piety or critiques of their spouses—without the risks publication entails. In other words, while women have historically used needlework as a medium through which to express sentiments they could not speak or publish in other forms, all needlework is not, necessarily, overtly subversive, nor were all women engaged in needlework attempting to disrupt social and gender norms. Rather, sewing offered women a space for self-expression that, no matter the content, would still be considered appropriate. In this case, Sessions recorded her dissatisfaction with her marriage in her sampler, and the form of the composition mitigated the subversive potential of the text by reinscribing it within domestic spaces and practices. Sessions did not seek to upset Mormon values, nor did she seek to upend conventional gender norms. She did, however, wish to express her feelings about herself, and her husband, through needlework. By using her sampler as more than a memento or a tool of learning, she created a beautiful discursive artifact that could express her feelings and be appreciated by future generations. Her sampler offers unparalleled insights into how Sessions sought to construct meaning out of her life and reveals how needlework enables women to express themselves. Ultimately, her needlework has been rhetorically effective, as scholars do, indeed, remember her.