Kathy's Last Design (for now) and Marty's First Two...

Carriage House will be officially releasing the last design that Kathy completed before turning over the shop to me. It's called "Wash Day" and I love it! It feels like Spring!! We'll release it in Nashville so it should be in your local shop the following week. If it's not, please contact Tim at Carriage House Samplings (www.carriagehousesamplings.com) He will quickly send it your way! Thanks to Joanne Ambrose for stitching it so quickly!

And my first design: "Island Sisters" inspired by the fun creek and island behind the small farm where Kathy and I grew up ("Field Aray"). Carol Sims expertly stitched it and Valley House Primitives created the beautiful frame with a wave design! It will also be released in Nashville as well as ...

"The Kernel," a celebration of roosters and farm life! I'm sure you'll be seeing a lot more chickens and roosters in my upcoming designs. Again, Valley House Primitives created this gorgeous frame and Carol Sims did the stitching.

And upcoming from Carriage House Samplings: Tim is charting a huge sampler from 1849 that Kathy found in Adamstown, PA ... 11 year old Agness Rowlandson was amazing! (And Tim is doing an amazing job too!)

An Inspirational Sampler!

I received this Quaker sampler as a Christmas gift and love the letter forms and pastel colors! As a designer at The Washington Post, I'm restricted to a couple of fonts and black, gray and red. Soooo boring!

Happy 2011!

Here's a sneak preview of my first design, "Island Sisters" which is in production and will be available in a few weeks... Thanks to Carol Sims for beautifully stitching it! It's based on a tiny island in the creek that ran behind our childhood home outside of Frederick, Maryland. I don't know if Kathy remembers it so fondly, but I loved catching crayfish, chasing minnows and generally cooling off in the summer in this creek!