19.2.13

dressing stones








My Grandma Bradshaw was a country woman. My mother's mother, she was (to me) everything a grandmother should be. She was loving and gentle, warm and good. She milked the cows and gathered the eggs, baked the bread, made root beer and hand-dipped chocolates. She cooked huge meals for even huge-r crowds. She grew and harvested her own vegetables and then canned them for the winter. She snuggled me in her soft and comfortable lap and taught me to love to knit and crochet. It was under her patient tutelage that I learned to work the magic that happens with sticks and strings. 

When I first saw pictures of crochet covered stones last spring I was hooked (ha! I know but how could I not?) Beautiful and unusual, I felt drawn to the challenge of dressing some myself. My own form of mental exercise, I was addicted to dressing stones - figuring the pattern, finding the perfect stone, choosing a lovely silk or cotton thread. I gathered stones on walks and trips and with every stitch remembered my grandma.

One day as he watched me covering a stone Jonathon laughed at me gently and said of all the enthusiasms I have had, making clothes for stones was probably the strangest. That may be but I argue that it has to be one of the prettiest. At any rate, it is much more fun for me than sudoku.

In answer to the inevitable question of what they are for - to admire, silly!


3 comments:

Elizabeth Cranmer said...

I love these fancy stones.
My Grandma Muirhead had a special wooden box on her staircase whenI was a child. It was full of shells and special stones form special travels. We thought it was magical!! Spent hours with it really.
This is just right up that same alley. I'm sure your grandkids will find just as much pleasure if not more in dressing or undressing stones.
They are so lovely to look at!

Amy Bell said...

Wow these are beautiful!

Jill said...

You are great Grandma material. :) I love these stones and how they look from all sides.