1897 Schoolhouse Samplers' designer

Lianne van Leyen

LIANNE’s career has spanned fine arts, child protection, banking, and higher education management. She lives with her husband Grant in a one-room Ontario schoolhouse built in 1897 and owns a church built next door in the 1920s. The couple are also caretakers of three antique British vehicles. She spent years learning to paint and draw and teaching herself many different crafts, including cross stitch.

LIANNE van LEYEN is an artist and a storyteller. 

LIANNE holds incomplete, timeworn, damaged & unusual samplers as precious and deserving of love & attention. She is the caretaker of a growing collection of antique schoolgirl samplers and the designer behind 1897 Schoolhouse Samplers.  Her diverse collection of samplers, currently numbering more than 350 pieces, includes dated examples from 1726 to 1978, made in the UK, U.S.A., Europe and Canada.  

LIANNE van LEYEN shares her sampler collection and the history of needlework with local, national and international needlework and / or sampler guilds and public museums through in–person and virtual presentations, via her website 1897schoolhousesamplers.ca and through her social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram.  She leads retreats and workshops, has had her work published in PieceWork magazine and contributed to podcasts.  Lianne works to increase exposure and interest in historical textiles & needlearts within and outside the stitching community.

LIANNE sought to give new purpose to her sampler collection by creating original and reproduction cross-stitch patterns starting in 2018.  Through her company, 1897 Schoolhouse Samplers, she shares the stories of overlooked antiques and makes her cross stitch patterns available to modern stitchers for retail purchase from local and virtual needlework shops located around the world and to wholesale customers via Hoffman Distributing Company.