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 historical fiction series is based on author Linda K. Hubalek's ancestors who 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.