These gentle words, found on a softly faded sampler, beckon you to the quiet world of Shepherd's Bush, a needlework haven located in Ogden, Utah, nestled between the shores of the Great Salt Lake and the beautiful snow-capped Wasatch range of the Rocky Mountains. Tina Richards Herman and her sister, Teri Richards, opened their unique retain shop in 1984. This establishment--a needle and folk art store--was named for a district in London and is housed in a renovated 19th century blacksmith and carriage shop in the heart of Ogden's historic district. From the wildflowers and cranberries hanging from the heavy timber ceiling rafters, to the samplers and quilts adorning the worn brick walls--from shelves stacked with fine linens and homespun cottons, to the antique hutches brimming with hand-woven and dyed splint baskets, this store evokes a memory and nostalgia of a gentle life long past.

In 1987, with a thriving retail business and Tina's new baby in tow, Tina and Teri launched their design business under the name of Shepherd's Bush Printworks. As a student of German history and literature at the University of Heidelberg, Tina became inspired by the beautiful old tapestries and samplers she found in the castles and museums of Europe. She began to explore that particular art form--enchanted with the creative expression of color, fiber and design--eventually melding it with her literary love for the written word. Tina has refined her distinctive style even further in such recent pieces as Emmanuel's Song, Queen Bee and French Heart which reflect her characteristic palette of muted and unusual combinations of colors, her pensive poetry and her charming Earth People. The Earth Gatherer and the Wool Gatherer are two more patterns which explore the soft and tender work of Tina's Earth People. They also reflect Shepherd's Bush's subtle and sophisticated incorporation of beads, ribbons, tiny pearl buttons and silver charms with the needlework.

The Printwork's publications to date include a line of cross stitch leaflets and a series of stitching cards which evoke the natural splendor of the English countryside where Teri and Tina spent time as children with their grandmother. They also produce a series of samplers worked on linens which Teri dyes by hand in the yard at the rear of the shop. Their offerings also include a delightful assortment of needle roll kits, reminiscent of those found in gentle sewing baskets of centuries past, as well as an exquisite group of larger samplers geared for the stitcher who is ready to venture beyond cross stitch.

All portions of this expanding business are located with in the same building; the front half devoted to the retain store and the back half used primarily for the design business. "Little did we know nineteen years ago we could have ever filled up this big building!" A high-ceilinged, sun-lit office space once made room for a crib, a wooden tricycle, and now, an Indian wool carpet is always sprinkled with Legos and Nintendo games. A once spacious store room is now bursting with bolts of linens, cones of silks and cottons, boxes of books, and shelves weighed down with kits. And a quiet, elegant classroom now bustles on any given day with the hum of computers, kit assembly, or new pattern designing. All aspects of the busy retain and wholesale business are managed by Tina and Teri who are assisted by a "wonderful, loyal and untiring staff of women, without whom we would be lost."