 With the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century , the focus of English embroidery increasingly turned to clothing and household furnishings , leading to another great flowering of English domestic embroidery in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras . The end of this period saw the rise of the formal sampler as a record of the amateur stitcher 's skills . Curious fashions of the mid @-@ 17th century were raised work or stumpwork , a pictorial style featuring detached and padded elements , and crewel work , featuring exotic leaf motifs worked in wool yarn . 
