A determined widow faces the challenge of a new life to regain the confidence and independence of her youth, but finds that life, unlike knitting, doesn’t always follow a pattern.
After twenty-five years of being the perfect wife and mother, Martha LeBeau finds herself unexpectedly widowed and shocked to discover her husband had been living a double life, leaving her penniless and in debt. Determined to regain her lost confidence and independence, she sells her suburban Chicago home and moves to the Wisconsin countryside to forge a new life away from cheating men and smothering children. There she meets the Wool Gatherers, a group of fiber artists who teach her the art of spinning wool and raising sheep. Along with one determined Border Collie, she begins on the path to self-growth and healing.
Riley O’Connor is the single father of a child with Asperger Syndrome. The child’s mother walked out on them because she found that life too difficult to handle. Since then, he has dedicated himself to protecting his son from any further emotional damage.
Meeting Riley and his son through her new job brings love and challenges to Martha’s newly found independence. Romance blooms like a finely knit cable, entwining their lives.
Can either of them learn to trust again?
Cara Olson is forced to put aside her struggling art career in Chicago to care for her ailing grandmother in Wisconsin. While journeying with her beloved Gram through the diagnosis of possible Alzheimer’s disease, she loses and then rediscovers her passion for art and experiences the resurrection of a past love.
Struggling artist Cara Olson is called home to Wisconsin to care for her ailing grandmother who is showing signs of Alzheimer’s disease. Leaving behind her mentor//boyfriend, Stefan, she begins to look at her unsuccessful career and relationship in a new light.
Surprised to find her Gram’s doctor is her high-school crush, Peter Andreson, she fights her reignited feelings. When Chicago critics dismiss her artwork as a poor imitation of Stefan’s, she is devastated and vows to give up art.
While caring for Gram and running her small Scandinavian gift shop, the Wool Gatherers, a local group of fiber artists, help her find new outlets for her creativity, designing works of art with hand-made felt and her re-emerging love of landscape and portrait painting.
Along the way, her feelings for Peter grow, and she realizes she has once again fallen for a man only dedicated to his career. When the opportunity arises for her to return to Chicago with the promise of a new career, she seizes it. But even her success can’t fill the void she experiences without Gram, her new friends, and Peter.
Can she return to Shoreview, the place that inspires her art, and be satisfied with a life that doesn’t include him?
Tiny violets had appeared almost overnight among the
dead leaves on the forest ground, poking their heads up in defiance of the long
winter that had buried them deep in the cold and snow. Where did they get their strength? Even though all
around me the earth had come alive, I felt a part of me had died along with my
desire to paint, and I was at a loss on how to resurrect it.
I squatted to the level of the violets. Rebirth after
death. So delicate looking, yet so strong. Why couldn’t I be like them?
Something inside of me wanted desperately to believe I could mimic the strength
of the forest wildflowers. The thought carried on the whisper of the evening
breeze, and I breathed the scent in deeply, needing to believe it.
The desire to paint clawed at my insides. I could feel
it gasping for life. Was it seeing the violets, so determined to thrive in that
barren sea of decayed leaves? My fingers itched with the familiar longing to
hold a paintbrush and bring that very vision to canvas.
Don’t
even consider it, a part of me begged. You don’t do landscapes. You’re setting yourself up for failure
again. I could visualize Steve’s sneer. But a stronger voice answered, What’s the harm? It could be fun.
I ran back to the house to get my digital camera. I’d
take a few photographs. That way, if I decided to paint the scene someday, I’d
have captured it on film.
More excited than I’d been since coming back to
Shoreview, I couldn’t begin to describe the feeling of satisfaction filming
those flowers gave me. I was finally on a new path. Where it would lead, I
didn’t know, but it felt damn good.
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