What’s up with the bee? Several years ago, my pastor preached a sermon series on famous names from the Bible. One of the famous names was Deborah, an Old Testament judge and warrior. The pastor explained that Deborah meant bee or wasp. At the time, I was the only Deborah in the church, so everyone looked at me. The pastor went on to say that the bee was busy about the home, making life sweeter for those around her, but watch out for her stinger! And my quiet husband promptly responded with a loud “Amen”! It was several minutes before the pastor could continue!
Anyway, I liked the idea of the bee, so I adopted the bee as my symbol. I hope my designs make your life sweeter, with no stingers!
I live in Conway, Arkansas, about 30 miles north of Little Rock, the state capitol. I’m a transplant, arriving in 1996 from Oklahoma City, where we lived for 13 years and I began stitching.
My husband Rod and I have two children, Elizabeth and Bob, and a tri-colored Sheltie named Mandy. My husband Rod is a software engineer, and my technical support, model photographer and cheerleader. Mandy is my stitching buddy, when she’s not eating my fibers. Once she even ate a finished project – nothing to do but start over, and make sure everything is put away properly! Elizabeth is a graduate of Arkansas Technical University, and married Will in 2004; Bob is a graduate of Lyon College in Batesville, and married Lara in 2011.
We have two grandchildren, Skylar and Emily, and I completely ignore stitching when they’re around! One of these days when they’re old enough I’ll teach them to stitch, but for now we enjoy other things.
I’m frequently asked how I got started designing. Like many of you, I started out cross stitching, and “tweaked” designs – changing colors, altering motifs, adding borders, rearranging things. Then I entered a design contest and won! Several people asked me to publish my winning design, so I did. I also participated in an ornament exchange with my stitching buddies every year, and started designing my own ornaments for the exchanges. I took classes at festivals and played with colors. Pretty soon I had several original designs, enough to launch my own business. And that’s how I got started.
