Home - and at work - for the holidays

Mention of "home office" employment usually conjures up desktop computers. But working mother Wendy McIntosh instead settles in every day behind a hand-powered loom - sometimes with 2-year-old daughter, Ernesta, in tow (above).

Ms. McIntosh runs Terrapin Handmade in South Lincoln, Vt., supplying personalized Christmas stockings to Garnet Hill, a luxury mail-order firm.

Between 1997 and 2002, the number of women-owned firms in the US grew at twice the rate of all firms (14 percent vs. 7 percent), according to the Center for Women's Business Research.