Over the last few months, several of you have asked me if I know what happened to Sage Stitchworks.  I’m sorry, but I don’t.

Never fear, however … I have another seller I can highly recommend to you for obtaining a similar — and I think even better! — product.

For some time — too long, in fact — I have been planning to tell you about another company which provides absolutely gorgeous Victorian Motto kits.  I owe an apology to the owner of the shop and company, Nancy Turner, because she even wrote me an email in which she pretty much wrote a very short article for me.  I prefer to write my own articles, so I did not take advantage of her email at the time, but my health has just never gotten back to what it was before my kidneys failed.   It’s really difficult for me to admit that there are things I simply can’t do anymore, or can’t do as well or as quickly as I could do them before … but I have to learn first to accept that I’ve probably made as full a recovery as I’m going to, and secondly to accept the help that’s offered to me so graciously.

Nancy Turner has successfully owned and operated her store, The Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe, through eBay (as an eBay store) for going on four years now.

I actually purchased four or perhaps even one or two more of Nancy’s mottos from her about nine months before she wrote me asking that I advertise her shop here on Independent Needlework News. I was so impressed with both her service and her products that I fully intended to write an unsolicited review of her shop for my readers.  (In other words, when I made my purchase from her was sometime very shortly before my kidney failure as well as my husband’s own stay in the hospital; I had intended to make up these motto kits as holiday gifts for 2007, and I can tell you that I was ordering them at a point in the year I would normally consider “too late” for starting a needlework gift — much less a needlework gift for each family member, LOL — but I knew how fast these mottos would stitch up and that the timeframe was actually feasible.)  However, due to my unexpected illness and the slow recovery from it, the discombobulation of dealing with my husband’s illness at the same time, and our deep grief over the sudden loss of my father-in-law, I ended up putting all Nancy’s lovely motto kits aside for another time.

I’m glad I did, too, because when I picked them up again, I could really enjoy them instead of their being unfairly (for them) associated in time with such a difficult emotional period in my life.

But back to the review … as you’ll notice when you look around Nancy’s shop, she has a very wide range of wonderful motto kits for you to choose from. Everything from reproduction style Victorian mottos to kits exemplifying modern-day humor. I’m quite sure you’ll find something there which will tickle your fancy, and if you don’t find just the right thing, then you’ll get an idea of what you’d like to have. From that point forward, all you need to do is contact Nancy, who I know will be happy to work with you to create just the motto you have in mind. She says designing a new motto from start to finish (once she has the idea for what it should say in mind) generally takes about eight hours, and she really loves doing this — not just for herself, but for you, too!

If you have all the threads you could possibly want to work with already, and thus would rather not purchase a full kit, ask Nancy about purchasing the “pattern only.” I put “pattern only” in quotation marks because what you’ll get if you choose this option is the design drawn for you on the perforated paper so that it’s easy to work; it’s not quite the same as what we counted cross stitchers usually tend to think of when we think of a pattern or chart only vs. a full kit. This is what I did, and Nancy was extremely accommodating — the pricing for the kits I wanted to purchase became just affordable enough to fit within my budget.

On the other hand, don’t be afraid to give Nancy’s stunning hand-dyed threads a try. They are her own brand, and over the years, she has perfected them to achieve just the look you want for your old-fashioned-looking, “antiqued” motto samplers. Although I elected to kit up my own threads to work my motto kits with, Nancy sent along a couple skeins of her threads as a treat, and they are truly spectacular. I was extremely impressed with their softness and sheen, not to mention with the colors. I’ve read reviews written by a few other people — at least one of whom wasn’t interested in the motto kits but ran across her fibers and wanted to try them — that have been very, very positive.

I decided to push myself to get this article written early in May because I had popped into Nancy’s shop for a visit and noticed she is having a wonderful sale for the entire month of May:

Purchase any four motto kits, and you can choose a fifth kit of equal or lesser value for free.  (Just email Nancy with your choice for your free kit.)

I can assure you this is a wonderful deal because these kits are terrifically addictive. They work up so quickly and look so gorgeous. Not only do you end up with a masterpiece you’ll cherish forever — or something you can work up in a flash that will be a much appreciated gift — but you’ll be eager to start the next one after experiencing the closest thing to instant gratification there is in the stitching world. When you’ve done everything Nancy already has available, you’ll be coming up with witty sayings for her to design into kits for you, and none of us will ever run out of things to stitch again (oh, wait … did we ever have that problem? )

Also, Nancy’s husband makes the absolutely beautiful frames you see her pieces framed in (Nancy stains them to individual customers’ requested colors), and these, too, can be purchased through her shop for a very reasonable price. For instance, the piece below, Scatter Smiles, is a complete kit available including the frame, for only $43.99!

Most of the frames range from $59.00 to $79.00 and one of the nice things about them is that you can buy one frame and change the design in it throughout the year to suit your fancy.

Nancy also does other great deals, such as offering wholesale prices if you buy ten or more kits. So hurry on over to her shop and see what you’ve just got to have! You’ve even got time to order and stitch something for everyone on your list for Mother’s Day!