Olivia Storm

Every being and artifact on this earth has its own historical beginning, and cross-stitch embroidery is no different. Counted cross stitch is rising in popularity again today, and was at its peak, prior to the invention of the sewing machine. Other than that short span of years, it has been part of women's lives since early medieval times and before. However, without people like Therese de Dillmont or Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, the movement would never have spread as rapidly as it did, bringing new jobs for women who had no experience or money.

Without people like Therese de Dillmont or Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, the movement wouldn't have spread as rapidly as it did, bringing new jobs for women who had no experience or money.

When Therese de Dillmont's military father died in 1857, she was 11 years of age. Poverty stricken, her mother moved the family to Vienna in 1864, where she begged the Emperor Franz Joseph to financially help her with educating her youngest daughter, Therese de Dillmont. Receiving 80 Gulden (Dutch Guilders or Florins, that remained legal tender until the recent introduction of the Euro) every year until 1874, Therese was educated as a governess and a teacher.

The embroidery school in Vienna was founded in 1874, where Therese visited the year of her graduation. She received a diploma from the Vienna Academy of Embroidery. Upon meeting Daniel, Jean Dollfus' son, they set up her school of embroidery in 1884, at Dornach, near Mulhouse. In 1886, she published the book "Encyclopedia of Ladies' Handiwork", an 800 page encyclopedia for needlepoint reference which is still highly used today.

Two years earlier, the Royal School of Needlework in England was developed by the third daughter of Queen Victoria, Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, to improve an acceptable form of employment for women of gentle birth who were in financial need, in the wake of the Industrial Revolution.

Additionally, she knew there was a need to improve the poor quality of workmanship, resulting from the introduction of machine made textiles. These were the same reasons many of the other embroidery schools opened up for women during this same period, in many different countries.

Crafting had begun way back in history, to the beginning of civilization when the medieval crafters created basic tools to survive in a rough world, along with crafting tools to make do with what they had. You know, similar to the Pioneer women of the Western movement!

It was later that the Arts & Crafts movement, influenced by William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Oscar Wilde, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Walter Crane, was able to revive the interest in "good simple folk designs" that were made from quality materials and traditional needlework skills that had fallen by the wayside after the invention of the sewing machine.

The main proponents were considered to be William Morris and Edwin Lutyens, who helped develop the movement as a social revolution, hidden behind a design movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Today, the American Needlepoint Guild, Inc. defines needlepoint as "any counted or free stitchery worked by hand, with a threaded needle on a readily countable ground.". Usually needlepoint was done on canvas, using wool to execute the tent stitch.

Cross-stitch embroidery is one of the earliest forms of needlepoint we know about and can be found all over the world. The earliest known cross-stitch sampler in the USA is at the Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth Hall, in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It was created by the daughter of Captain Myles Standish, Loara Standish, about 1653.