Love Rocks

After a string of many sad, angry, and depressing posts in a row, I have decided to try and put the blog back on some neutral ground...  I am still not feeling quite back to normal, but writing about something else might help me to get there...

Realizing that lately I have not been doing any of my favorite things I normally love to do, I decided it was time to get back to those previously enjoyed activities.  Crocheting for me is somewhat of a de-stresser, it allows me to focus my thoughts on one very specific task for as long as I wish to do so.  As well, the colorful yarn, stitch counting, and the creation of something beautiful happening before my eyes is somewhat mesmerizing...  Sort of like active meditation.  Anyway, I don't remember the last thing I crocheted that was not baby-related, so this weekend I had to browse the pages on Ravelry to find something to make specifically for me...  I came across some unique crochet covered rocks and they caught my attention right away.  They are kind of like a mini yarn bomb you can display in your house all the time.

I got my inspiration from these lovely creations:

You can find the originals: here, here, here, here, and here

Not only did I have the tiny hook and thin yarn required to make these, but I had the rocks to do it too.  And they are not just any old rocks, but special rocks we used in our wedding ceremony last September.  

During the ceremony, our wedding officiant Jeanne handed us each a stone that she had collected from the river which flowed next to the outside ceremony site.  She said that each of the stones represented our hearts, and had us trade stones and give our "hearts" to each other.  We then had the stone building ceremony, which involved us together stacking river rocks on top of each other to make a tall pile.  She said that as we did it some would fall down, and we would pick them back up and keep building - a metaphor that in life sometimes we fall down but together we can get back up and be stronger because of it.  The final top two rocks were our "hearts."  She encouraged us to take home the stones and keep them by our bed, Erik's "heart" near my side and mine near his.  We have kept them on our nightstands ever since...

Stone Building Ceremony, 9-10-11.  Photo courtesy of Jesse Kitt Photography

Part of the reason I wanted to make this project, was that I thought it would be neat to "decorate" the ceremony stones.  I used a different pattern for each stone, they can be found here and here.  I lightly modified each one to fit the stones.  See my work below...

Erik's "heart" is on the left, mine is on the right

I used a lightweight sock yarn which allows for some stretch so I can later take off the crochet part if I decide to.  They were a fun, simple project that took less than an hour each.  A perfect way to get me back to doing something that I really enjoy...

I can't help but think it was more than a coincidence that I stumbled across this pattern and decided to make it using our wedding stones.  It reminded me of our lovely wedding day and the lesson demonstrated by the stone building ceremony - sometimes in life you fall down, or things happen which "knock you over" and the best thing to do is get back up together and just keep building...