The park bookstore and three cross-stitching shops in the Gettysburg area began carrying the design, and Frost started to make plans to produce about one or two historic pieces a year.

But shortly after the first design was released, Frost suffered a serious accident. She fell two stories through a faulty hay-drop door in the barn and sustained a broken back, three broken ribs, a collapsed lung and fractured her left wrist.

After surgery, she was in physical therapy for 10 months. Despite not having the use of her dominant hand, she said she was able to sit in a body brace for part of the day to design patterns at the computer with her right hand.

“I had just started my business and I wasn’t about to quit,’’ Frost said.

After her recovery, she designed a pattern of the Pennsylvania memorial for fallen Union soldiers. Later, she designed Virginia’s monument to Confederate soldiers.

In all, she has done designs on 11 buildings and monuments and noted it takes her three to four months to finish each one. They include two Gettysburg Samplers, which have a number of words and phrases related to the battle and are her top sellers.

Also, the adjacent Eisenhower National Historic Site commissioned her to design the Eisenhower Home — where the former president and first lady lived — as a cross-stitch pattern.

Frost also had an opportunity to work in another art form. She said a friend in Gettysburg wrote a child’s primer on a union soldier and asked her to draw the illustrations.

“My husband reluctantly agreed to be the model,’’ Frost said.

When her husband was transferred two years ago to the University of Nevada as the cooperative ecosystems studies coordinator for the Great Basin, the Frost family searched for a place where they could have horses. They moved to New Washoe City and began making a major adjustment to their lives.

Frost, originally from American Fork, Utah, has lived in 10 states and never has been anywhere for a long time. But she said her family’s emotional attachment to Gettysburg was very strong.

“It was very difficult to leave. We were crushed,’’ Frost said.

Last year, she received more bad news when she was informed the park service’s concessionaire was dropping her design patterns from its Gettysburg store. She said she was told there was a long-forgotten policy where present or former employees are prohibited from selling items of present or former employees.

“It was hard to take. I told them this is one thing the Civil War offers to women,’’ Frost said.

But she said she began looking at ways to regroup.

“My designing business started as a way for me to try to make a little money for my family and I wanted to continue down that road,’’ Frost said. She and her husband have two teenage daughters.

While reading an edition of Just CrossStitch magazine, she said she noted an invitation for designers to send in résumés and the type of work they do for possible inclusion in the publication.

“I’ve never been one to promote myself, but I thought I’d give it a chance,’’ Frost said.

She said someone from the magazine contacted her and said they wanted to do a piece on her — including the use of an unpublished design.

Despite limited time, Frost produced a design of the Irish Brigade monument at Gettysburg, as well as a historical house. Magazine editors featured the design in the March/April issue along with a profile of Frost.

Since the magazine was released, Frost said she’s been getting e-mails from people throughout the country.

Meanwhile, Frost has started what she calls the Trilby-Mina Collection, named after two aunts of her husband. Patterns in the collection include inspirational-type messages and sayings.

She recently introduced the collection in Utah, where there’s a major demand geared toward the Mormon faith and culture as young girls are taught the art of stitching.

Frost said she also does special orders and since moving to Northern Nevada has produced a design of the Reno Arch. And she said she’s started to do research on a Bowers Mansion design, which she hopes to finish by September.

Her design patterns, including a detailed chart on what colors to use and a historical information sheet, retail for $8 each.