The Spanish Mystery Sampler
This sampler has such a mystery about it. I found the original on eBay for just a few hundred dollars back in around 2009. The bottom half of the sampler was CUT OFF! The sampler has no name, no date, and the style is hard to pin down. Quaker stars? English and French style motifs and letters? And the top alphabet is Spanish! Who was this stitcher? We will never know, but the sampler remains timelessly beautiful.
I suggest you stitch yours in silks: Gloriana, Belle Soie, Needlepoint Silks, but I provide a Sampler Threads and a DMC floss conversion for your convenience. My model is stitched on 40 count Vintage Light Exemplar by Lakeside Linens, but I did over-dye mine a bit with coffee to give it a more weathered and worn look. The original fabric is quite dark and thin. You could stitch this sampler on any count (there are no areas of over-one.) But the stitch count is quite large -- 500 by 320.