On July 10, 2023, the world lost Phyllis Hoffman DePiano, an extraordinary entrepreneur whose influence will live on through the company and magazines she founded. She was my dear friend, a bright light in my life for more than four decades.
We met as neighbors and bonded over our shared love of needlework, traditional architecture and furni-ture, Colonial Williamsburg, and afternoon tea. Phyllis moved next door when she married my neighbor in 1978. She noticed the many counted cross-stitch designs displayed on my kitchen walls when she came to visit and returned the next day with plastic bags filled with fabric, bits of embroidery floss, and charts. Our future was launched when she asked me to teach her to read the charts that would allow her.
