Trail of Thread: A Woman's Westward Journey, Historical Letters 1854-1855 Trail of Thread Series, Book 1 Taste the dust of the road and feel the wind in your face as you travel with a Kentucky family by wagon train to the new territory of Kansas in 1854. Find out what it was like for the thousands of families who made the cross-country journey into the unknown. In this first book of the Trail of Thread series; in the form of letters she wrote on the journey, Deborah Pieratt describes the scenery, the everyday events on the trail, and the task of taking care of her family. Stories of humor and despair, along with her ongoing remarks about camping, cooking, and quilting on the wagon trail make you feel as if you pulled up stakes and are traveling with the Pieratt’s, too. But hints of the brewing trouble ahead plagued them along the way as people questions their motive for settling in the new territory. If they are from the South, why don’t they have slaves with them? Would the Pieratt’s vote for or against legal slavery in the new state? Though Deborah does not realize it, her letters show how this trip affected her family for generations to come. This series is based on author Linda K. Hubalek's ancestors that traveled from Kentucky to Kansas in 1854. Twelve old quilt patterns are mentioned in the letters, and the sketched designs are in the back of the book for reference.

Subtitle: A Woman's Quest for Land, Historical Letters 1854-1860 Trail of Thread Series, Book 2 Experience the terror of the fighting and the determination to endure as you stake a claim alongside the women caught in the bloody conflicts of Kansas in the 1850s. Follow the widowed Margaret Ralston Kennedy (a relative of the author) in this second book of the Trail of Thread series, as she travels with eight of her thirteen children from Ohio to the Territory of Kansas in 1855. Thousands of American headed west in the decade before the Civil War, but those who settled in Kansas suffered through the frequent clashes between proslavery and free-state fractions that gripped the territory. Margaret was dedicated to the cause of the North, and while the male members of her family were away fighting for a free state, she valiantly defended their homestead and held their families together through the savage years of Bleeding Kansas. Told through her letters, Thimble of Soil describes the prevalent hardships and infrequent joys experienced by the hardy pioneer women of Kansas, who struggled to protect their families from terrorist raids while building new homes and new lives on the vast unbroken prairie. Watch for the twelve quilt patterns mentioned in the letters.

Sititch of Courage, the third book in the Trail of Thread series, tells the story of the orphaned Maggie Kennedy, who followed her brothers to Kansas in the late 1850s. In letters to her sister in Ohio, Maggie describes how the women of Kansas faced the demons of the Civil War, fighting bravely to protect their homes and families while never knowing from one day to the next whether their men were alive or dead on the faraway battlefield. Twelves quilt patterns are stitched into this story.