How it All Started

Many people ask me how I Done My Best began. I have always made things for my home and loved to do reproduction samplers. In 1993, when we lived in Texas, I used to take my samplers to a framer in an antique mall to have them framed. The shop owner repeatedly urged me to rent a space in her shop and sell finished samplers and cross-stitch books.
I always felt that my things were good enough for me, but that other people would find my flaws. I didn't have the confidence to give it a try.
My husband, Dean, kept urging me to do it, and once when I was visiting my daughter in Utah, he went down to the antique mall and rented me a five-foot space. He then called me and told me to come home because I had a wall to fill!
Dean had envisioned me doing cross-stitched samplers to sell.
Obviously he had never stitched one to see how much time they took! At any rate, I needed to come up with something quicker to stitch. So my own brand of sampler was born.
After a few months, the antique mall closed. Two of the ladies who also had booths in the mall decided to open their own shop and invited me to stitch and sell finished pieces. When I brought in pillows and samplers to sell, I would get requests to make another one, or two, or ten, just like the original one. Somehow I couldn't bring myself to make the same thing over and over. I loved doing an original design and then moving on to the next original. My family and friends urged me to begin producing patterns, and when I came to the point where I couldn't keep up with the orders, I finally conceded that patterns were the way to go.
One day, my daughter Jeana sat me down and made me draw. The whole time, I was grumbling at her for making me do it, but the Patriotic Angel was born! Later that week, I designed five more patterns.
I would draw the design and stitch it, then Jeana would write the instructions on the computer. I was far too afraid of the computer at that point to even turn it on!
I chose the name, "I Done My Best" for my pattern company because I have always felt that no one can ask you to do more than your very best. It seemed fitting, because I am doing the best I can.
That is how I started, and now that Dean isn't her to push me, my daughters are all too quick to take up the slack. I still get insecure about my work. I have a recurring nightmare that one day someone is going to figure out that I'm having too much fun for this to be work.
When I look back over the past, I am amazed at how everything has been laid out for me. Dean had always wanted me to do something like this so that if there ever came a time when he couldn't provide for me, I would have a means of supporting myself. I have been extremely blessed to have everything work out the way it has. I am able to support myself and involve alll of my children in the business. We get to play together everyday, all in the name of work!