Finding the Path

So, 15 years later here I am finally going to make my dream come true. All this time in between has been prep for finally doing the work, and I truly love the work. Anything creative with a needle and thread makes my soul smile. I guess I've always known this is what I want to do. My father told me a story about how when I was very young, probably three, I threw a fit because I wanted to stitch with my mother and grandmothers on a quilt they were making. He said I was relentless until they let me sit with them. On my own I remember how much I loved doing the pictures with the holes punched for lacing yarn through and outlining the designs. I would do that until the yarn would frazzle and break. In kindergarten I discovered stringing large various shaped colored wooden beads on long shoestrings. My mother taught me to use needle and thread and along the way I picked up crewel and cross stitch on my own. It seems all the women in my family had a knack for this work in one way or another, so I am grateful for their wonderful gene pool!

Funny, but it wasn't until I learned cross stitch that my needlework intensified. The problem came when I was dissatisfied doing other people's work. I needed to modify their work to enjoy making the pattern, until I thought it was time for me to unleash my own creativity and let it run amok by doing my own designing. When I ran across seed beads, I was in absolute heaven once I learned to use them on fabric to enhance my stitching. It all just seemed a natural progression to other embellishments and fibers and experimenting to find my niche. I seemed pretty aimless until I realized how I wanted to put them all together, and that has only been in the last three or four years.

What would I have done if it hadn't been for needlework? I can't even fathom an answer to that question. I am a chronic asthmatic that has attack triggers to EVERYTHING except food. Animals are the worst so I couldn't have a career with anything with fur (due to the protein in their saliva which they put all over themselves when they lick their fur). Physical activity and the cold are other triggers so being an athlete was out. Pollen, trees, mold, and grasses were triggers as well so being outdoors and/or gardening were other inhibitors to career paths. This all started before I was the age of five, so I don't think it was a coincidence my talents were turned to stitching, I believe it was pretty much ordained.

Once I accepted this, there was less confusion about the future. My choices were already narrowed down for me, although I fought that notion for the better part of my life by trying to do things my asthma wouldn't allow. There finally came a deep sense of contentment with this realization as well as commitment to doing something that I am capable of doing and at which I have lots of experience. Sometimes it takes a lot of thumps on the head before a point is made and taken.