In The Secret Garden

Long ago, there was a young girl, who being drawn to beautiful colored threads, took up stitching. Her first attempts, made in her early teens, were simple embroidery. She found this to be a very soothing and satisfying way to spend an occasional winter evening or summer afternoon. 

As time went on, she advanced to more intricate types of needlework such as crewel work, Swedish huck embroidery and counted cross stitch. Her love for the feel of the soft, satiny fibers gliding through her fingers grew with each passing year. She was delighted by the delicacy of the stitches and the beauty of the colors combined. Her mind was filled with ideas for lovely things waiting to be made.

Although she taught herself to do the simple embroidery of the early days, as well as the crewel embroidery, others picked up the thread from there. The connections she made with those who taught her along the way was one of the most wonderful aspects of the journey, as she continued to ply her needle. Friendships were being formed and relationships became deepened.

When the girl was grown, but only just, she worked in a salon. Virginia, a lovely older lady, came to her every Thursday to get her hair styled. Sharing a love of needlework, she began to instruct her in the fascinating art of Swedish huck embroidery, or huck weaving. Once again, she was thrilled to learn something new. 

In that same salon, the girl learned to crochet from another special woman named Lois. With list in hand, she purchased supplies and took to the new form of needlework like she had been born to do it all along. She crocheted feverishly whenever time allowed. 

Soon after, the young girl got married. When her new husband had to work in the evenings, her dear mother-in-law decided she should spend one evening a week with her learning to do counted cross stitch. This phenomenal lady, an artist with threads and paints, took the young bride under her tutelage and schooled her in the art of beautiful stitchery on fine linen. 

In the early days of motherhood, the young woman took up her knitting needles for the first time. She paid for some classes at a local yarn shop and thus began a lifelong passion. As the years went by she continued to crochet and, for a time, she did a bit of embroidery, but not often. Knitting had become her one true love in fiber art, with crochet running a close second. Through all of the many things that took place as her children grew and life took its twists and turns, her deep love for knitting grew like a well-nurtured garden. She knew that nothing would ever pluck it out of her soul, for it was well rooted deep within.

She also knew that long before there was knitting or crocheting, and before she ever threaded a needle with a delicate strand of embroidery floss, there was something else planted in the secret garden of her heart. It was the constant, unseen thread woven through the tapestry of her life. Her love for words. Not remembering a time before that love, she assumed she had been born with it mixed in the soil of her DNA.

By the time she was in grade school her love for words and books came out on paper in stories from her own imagination. There were diaries and journals scribbled across and filled over the years. Her pen flowed with poetry that her mind couldn't shut off once she entered her early teenage years. 

In her late twenties, she started college in pursuit of a nursing career. After accumulating most of her college credits for an Associates Degree, she changed her mind and dropped out of school. Life continued and she happily did many other things. As she developed her knitting skills, she continued to write. She embraced the new thing called a blog when it first entered the scene. She was elated to have a creative outlet for her writing and loved connecting with other fiber artists and people around the world.

In the fullness of time, that wild, nearly abandoned jumble of hopes and dreams began to take root, flourish, and bloom within the center of the garden of her life once again. For a minute, maybe even two, she feared that the girl was now too old to accomplish those long ago desires and turn them into actual goals. Then she lifted her face to the sun and decided to grow in a new direction. 

Although the coming of June 2019 would find her in her mid-fifties, she would be starting that same month by going back to school to finish off her degree. First, she would work to get an Associates Degree in Arts with an emphasis on English. Then she would move onto obtaining a Bachelor's Degree in English.

She could finally feel herself coming full circle. She had found the key to unlocking the next door and was excited, if a bit nervous, to step through it. For she believed there was a beautiful garden waiting on the other side. Even if it was going to take time to prune, water, feed and nurture it. It would grow in the way it was meant to. She had faith. She knew she was on the right path this time.

"At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done,

then they begin to hope it can be done,

then they see it can be done -

then it is done and all the world wonders 

why it was not done centuries ago."

Frances Hodson Burnett

"The Secret Garden"

*Special Note - For those interested in the beautiful embroidery kit shown in the photos, you can purchase it, while supplies last, from the very talented Alicia Paulson, author of the much-loved blog, *Posie Gets Cozy"* 

Blackberries & Heather - Bells