This collection almost didn't exist.

I had started to create, I designed the print, I sent it off to be printed, I started shaping the necklaces in my head, and I began sewing them. When I put the first one on the mannequin, my inspiration went out the window. I didn't like it. It lacked the magic.

I felt blocked for a few weeks and hit the pause button. I put everything in a drawer.

Then, one day, looking at the photo of my grandmother that I have on my corkboard, which was taken on my birthday 36 years earlier, I saw her step out of the image, I felt her hand on mine, and together we opened the box where I had stored hundreds of embroidered appliqués she had bought when she used to do crafts. This is it! I had saved them with care because they were going to be useful for something someday; I have that habit. Those appliqués had been chosen by her, many years ago, and they were perfect.

With her whisper in my ear, I began placing the appliqués on my pieces—more to the right, to the left, this one matches here, this one there—and everything made sense. The magic had arrived. It was an unstoppable creative flow. By her hand, just like when I was little.

And that is how Lela’s garden was born.

I designed this collection, but she made it.