An unimagined rest...

Almost six months ago I wrote my final blog post saying goodbye to seventeen years of blogging and sixteen years of designing hand embroideries. 

So here we are at very end of November and for a variety of reasons, and after a long season of physical injuries and enforced rest (still), the desire to write for you again, to share a simple life through the pages of my blog, has been restored. 

When I closed the door on blogging, it was with a genuine permanence of heart. During the first two weeks of stepping away, I cleaned out every cupboard and drawer and file system, shredding more than a decade of Elefantz business paperwork, and donating a great deal of fabric and sewing notions. A weight lifted, and I was excited to begin a full makeover and clean up of our quarter acre.  

For the next three weeks, after the household chores were done, I worked hard in the gardens, bringing long awaited plans to fruition, and creatively making more. My to-do list for the front and back gardens was long indeed, but I was content, and incredibly happy, to start from the top and work my way through - as well as adding to what was quickly becoming an even longer list!

But then, I had an accident with my knee. Weeks and then a month went by, and the doctor I'd been seeing for quite a while could not diagnose what was wrong. Pain was rather dreadful and I could barely walk, and certainly could not attempt gardening. Eventually I requested an MRI and it was discovered the meniscus in my right knee had detached, and it also had a horizontal tear right through the centre. The delay in diagnosis had made things worse and I was eventually informed that with physio it may take up to a year for healing. 

For a few days after the accident (before the eventual diagnosis) I sat on the couch, unable to do much else, feeling rather sorry for myself, lamenting my ability to work in the garden and pleading with the Lord to heal me. By the third day, I decided reading would be better than watching old episodes of Poirot, and peering over at one of my bookshelves, I spied "Knitted Tea Cosies", a book I'd purchased at a sale many years ago but had never even browsed through. A plan was born, and after gathering yarn and knitting needles, I was already a quarter way through my first tea cosy when hubby arrived home from work. The following three months were spent knitting almost every day...

I practiced a few different styles, learned to knit leaves a couple of different ways, knitted berries and swirly things, all with the idea that they'd make lovely Christmas gifts at year's end. This was my very first completed tea cosy, made for myself as it was late July at this stage and mid-winter here in the tropics of Northern Australia (though a very warm winter as it turned out) and herbal teas were a daily treat using mint, tulsi, lemongrass, fresh ginger and lemon balm - all grown in our garden...

These leaves were knitted with garter stitch but I later began knitting leaves in stocking stitch. I got so fast with them that I ended up with a whole container of leaves in different colours. I made another tea cosy with cabled rows, another in moss stitch, and so things went on. I had absolutely no desire to do any hand embroidery. When I stepped away from blogging that day in mid June, I did not realise my desire to embroider would be set aside as well. 

My daughter Kezzie loves colour, and so I began a cosy for her, using a teapot from my collection, and choosing colours to blend with the design on it. She will love this...

A softer pink for a friend...

...and an autumn themed cosy for myself, still waiting to be assembled. 

I also knitted a bunny with dress and shoes for Rafaella, though at this stage I am yet to sew the bunny together and stuff it. 

And spying this gorgeous cropped cardigan pattern in Blossom's extensive collection of The Art of Knitting magazines, and knowing she would love a cropped cardie knitted in cotton yarn, I made it for her during the month of October. I don't have a photo of her wearing it, as she is rather camera shy, but it is worn to church every Sunday due to the air conditioning being even cooler than we have at home (we skipped spring and went straight to summer from the last week of winter/August!)...

And therein lies the next hurdle to my physical health. A trapped nerve in my elbow from the endless knitting for months on end. I've had an ultrasound and an MRI again, which ruled out a few things, and landed on Radial Tunnel Syndrome. The nerve pain was intense and endless. As you can imagine, knitting has stopped, although after four weeks since this happened, I did try to knit on Wednesday this week but after twelve stitches, no way...the pain! I stirred things up, which was quite unwise. My knee is still healing but I am coping well with both arm and knee pain now, and have almost finished weaning myself off the painkillers (they gave me a lot of dreadful side effects). 

So here's the thing. God steered me away from the blog that day in June and I needed to remove myself permanently, or so I thought. There have been times the past two months when I have considered coming back for two reasons - to share about Jesus, and to steer those who are interested in embroidery patterns back to my Etsy Shop. I want to be transparent, as I hope I have always been here, which is why I'm sharing that desire to increase Shop earnings due to hard times here at home, as one of those two reasons.

But then I pushed them aside, deciding that God gives the increase anyway, and so unless I had a real prompting from the Lord, I'd stay away. Many weeks have passed, many human decisions for and against, but then surrender to Jesus and His will be done. There's a testimony of Jesus, day by day in life, that needs to be shared. I still have a massive readership here on the blog every month, over 200,000 - and that's a God-gifted platform to share about Him. 

He also gave me a personal epiphany about what I needed to learn about myself from Him during the unimagined rest these past many months.

For sixteen years I have designed hand embroideries, quite successfully. By the gifting of God the designs came easily, the JOY to create and stitch them overflowed. I was just turning 50 when God gave me that gift, and after years of homeschooling, He was opening a new door for me. It was to be a lot of years of lessons from Him and His Word, and so many opportunties to share them with you in my blog posts...but in June, He had a new lesson for me.

I didn't get it at first. Busyness from clearing out the paperwork and the sewing room, daily jumping in to the garden and setting to work on my garden dreams, not once picking up my camera to take photos along the way, and ever so slowly separating myself from Jenny of Elefantz.

When He had me off my feet and needing to rest limbs for months, I was able to face a few things - such as 'who am I' now that I'm not designing? Was it easy for me to leave the blog because I no longer wanted to design?

Friends, the truth I have discovered is this - I no longer got the same delight in designing because of the pressure to do so. Being that for sixteen years I'd shared a free block of the month, sometimes two or three, EVERY single year since 2009, the dread of needing to keep coming up with ideas for another year was swallowing my peace. My heart wanted to stop, but how? That day when the hard drive crashed to the floor, and I thought everything about Elefantz, all the digital files over so many years, were lost...well, I felt God closing the door. I was shocked, sad, and yet secretly relieved. And He did close the door, but for a reason I never knew until recently. 

(By the way, when my husband arrived home that day and picked up the hard drive with its rattling of little pieces, he thought all was lost too. And then he plugged it in to my computer, and it worked perfectly. That still gives me goosebumps.) 

You see, I had become 'Jenny of Elefantz, an embroidery designer', and I wasn't sure how to be anyone else publicly. Behind the blog I am just Jennifer to my husband, Mum to my kids, and Nana to my grandchildren - and oh how I love that. 

The enforced slowing of the past four and half months from injuries has brought forth great fruit in how I view myself, and now, how I view the blog. Elefantz is the name God gave me in a dream way back in 2003 or 2004, and I thought it would be the name of a bookshop/cafe one day. Ha ha! God was so far ahead of me with His plans. So I cherish the name of my blog! But me, I am just Jennifer, and from today I look forward to writing here again about the things that matter in my life...Faith, Family and Home.

Sorry for the very long post, but I hope you'll drop back soon as things return to the simplicity of homemaking, God, garden, and my family. Allowing God to strip away the expectations I'd attached to myself was worth the injuries and the enforced rest. He led me beside still waters, and He restored my soul. Just call me blessed.

I've often prayed for you, and that won't change. Chat soon...

NOTE: I did pop in once after waving goodbye, in September, to offer some biblical thoughts about a sad event, and to share some of my dear Nana's wisdom, however, I eventually deleted it due to the harsh nature of some comments, an outcome I had never intended, and which served to prompt the removal of that blog post. Elefantz was never intended as a place for anger and hostility; it was, and is again, a place of refreshment, encouragement, faith, crafting and the love of homemaking. God bless!