Dear Friends,

Remember me? I hope so, but then again, maybe not. I know that it has been quite a long time--as all of my friends are happy to remind me. Actually I think around Thanksgiving. Well that sort of says it all doesn't it? I really couldn't tell you what has happened with the last 3 months, except that things have been busy and crazy. We were very busy preparing for our shop Christmas open house the weekend after Thanksgiving, and from there it seemed like we were just in a continual whirlwind spinning through Christmas and January in no time flat. I think that is good. The shop has been extremely busy and we have had a blast making and shipping all of our Christmas designs. And now, we are on the brink of the Nashville Market having spent the past month diligently designing and preparing fun new kits and patterns. I think that we might almost be ready--at least I hope so. Of course, yesterday, we all worked hard finishing up everything as Ray,our printer, would deliver the patterns. We just turned the music up and tried to keep up with it. And surprisingly enough, by the end of the day, we seemed to be pretty much finished. We left work at 5:00--still on our winter hours--and I went home to fix dinner and finish helping Christian with some college app stuff. As we left work, I said to Teri--Yippee!!! we don't have any "homework" to do tonight--since we have spent the past 6 weeks either stitching or preparing kits. Honestly, I was very happy. Teri looked sort of sad and answered--what are we going to do? I knew she was off to a youth church activity, and then stopping back at work to finish packing a suitcase. That should have been my danger signal, so I was only mildly surprised when she called at 9:30 to tell me that she was just a tiny bit bored and had thought up 1 more project for us to work on. Oh, yay! I, of course, had happily put myself into slug mode and was zoned out on top of my bed staring at a wall. Her 3-hour project was fun, though, and now I think we are ready to go to market.

She is armed with her lists of things to gather for the shop, so if you are looking for something, be sure to call the shop and we will pick it up while we are there. Next Tuesday--February, 22nd--we will be having Market Day. We will be closed until noon, and then open from 12 to 5 for a super fun afternoon of Nashville treasures. Teri has ordered tiny, fabulous cupcakes from Vintage Cupcake and she will be making her friend, Ruth's world famous punch, so how can you not want to come by. We will hopefully have our own new things out as well as all of the wonderful finds that Teri scoops up at the market. I know that all of our friends are very excited about the new Blackbird books--as are we--and I can't wait to see the new books from Plum Street--Hare's Winter, Hare's Fall and The Flood. I don't know what else she is looking for, but I do know that she has been making a list, and she will be most impatient to get out and go shopping on Saturday. So...mark your calendars and try to stop by if you are close. We will leave the market things up all week if you can't come on Tuesday, but I fear that the punch and cupcakes will be long gone. I might try to post a blog at market, so watch for it. But don't be too surprised if I am confounded by technology. I will write again as soon as I get back.

I know that there will be a lot coming up on our website in the next week or so. Maybe a blog from market, and Kristin is going to try to post our new things on the main page of our web site on Saturday, so be watching for it. Then, next week, we will post some of the fun things we have found at market on the blog, so that should be fun. In the meantime--here are 2 new things which we have gotten back from Jill:

Bent Creek's St Patrick's Row is very darling. I love what Teri did with it. Good Luck!

Everyone here is enchanted with this little sampler--Clara Ellen--from Blackbird. Teri had it stitched for our mom, and honestly, it is just beautiful. Don't you just love what Jill did with the mat and frame?

Are you now a little bit excited. Well we certainly are. I am just hoping that the good weather lasts for the market. In the meantime, stay safe and stay tuned...hugs, Tina