All Shall Be Well ~ a WIP

This is a piece I'm working on for my daughter. I'll actually make two so she has one to keep for herself. The other is going to be given to her favorite English professor (she's had 8 or 9 classes with her, and she's also her advisor).

The flower and border (which when finished will have little pink and yellow flowers along the green zigzag) are from a Colonial Williamsburg design that I purchased back in January. The phrase is a quote that's being used in my daughter's Senior Thesis (which she presents to the faculty on Thursday). It's originally from Julian of Norwich (c. 1400), and was later used in T.S.Eliot's poem, "Little Gidding". (DD is an English major, with a minor in History and a love and interest in Theology.)

It took me a few tries before I found an alphabet that would fit in well with the flower design, and not be too large or too small. This one seems to fit perfectly and I'm happy with the results. Although the quote from Julian of Norwich repeats the 'all shall be well' phrase twice, in T.S. Eliot's poem it's used only once (which is the reason for just the one line in the stitching). Here's a tiny portion of the poem by Eliot...


What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this
Calling

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.