Today women can purchase a wide array of embroidery patterns and books. But printed patterns are relatively new in the many thousand years of embroidery history.
Band Samplers were extremely popular as a method of recording different stitches and patterns. They were used by European Women for centuries as pattern references, their "sampler" or "sam-cloth". Typically these were long bands of linen, kept rolled, and carried in a work basket. Women would share their samplers, and would copy the stitches and patterns using a needle and thread, not pencil and paper.
Many fine band samplers are in the textile collection of the V&A Museum in London. At the V&A I copied Jane Bostocke's sampler stitches onto mine with silk thread.
