In Shakespeare's Play, "A Winter's Tale," a peddler (Autolycus), goes town-to-town selling linens, silks and other fineries.

AUTOLYCUS:



          And you shall pay well for 'em.

          [Follows singing]

          Will you buy any tape,

          Or lace for your cape,

          My dainty duck, my dear-a? 

          Any silk, any thread,

          Any toys for your head,

          Of the new'st and finest, finest wear-a?

          Come to the pedlar;

          Money's a medler.

          That doth utter all men's ware-a.

The painting you see on my main page, and the one at the top of each page is a painting from 1836 by Charles R. Leslie of Autolycus selling his wares. It is currently housed in London's Victoria & Albert Museum.

The history of my site is much more recent. I started this web site as "Theresa Venette's Needlework Home Page" in the fall of 1995 as a hobby. I had noticed a lack of needlework framing information on the Internet, and decided to tell people what I knew. Two years later, I turned the site into a needlework business. And the rest, as they say, is history.

I enjoy putting this information together -- much of it comes from readers just like you. And now, like Autolycus, I imagine myself going town-to-town, via the Internet, selling my needlework fineries to good stitchers. You can read more about me elsewhere on my site.

© 2007 Theresa Venette. Articles on this site may be reproduced in needlework group newsletters or other handouts with permission of author and proper attribution. Send questions, comments and suggestions to: xspeddler@yahoo.com