Abbie in Stitches

by Cynthia Cotten
illustrated by Beth Peck
Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2006
ISBN 978-0374300043

A delightful part of researching "Abbie in Stitches" was viewing reference on samplers. This led to the idea that each text box would be a simple suggestion for the border stitching on a sampler. It was also fun to have my daughter and friends model for the figure gestures. I made up peoples faces, yet it helps me enormously to have photographic reference to look at when drawing the human figure. ~Beth

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It's the early 1800s, and Abbie's sister, Sarah, is a proper young lady who loves needlework. She has already made a sampler displaying her neat and even stitching. But when it becomes time for Abbie to make her sampler, she despairs—she hates needlework and would much rather curl up with one of the books on Papa's shelf. How will she ever get through the long, tedious hours of needlework? And how can she pick a subject for a picture to sew when she really doesn't care about the sampler at all? After considering what's really important to her, Abbie completes the sampler in a way that is all her own.

Awards
2007 NCSS-CBC Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People
2007 Amelia Bloomer Project Recommended Titles List
Bank Street College "Best Books", 2007
Kansas State Reading Circle, 2007

A teaching guide is available for this book.