Rocky ramble

Rocks have been used as the starting point for quilts - for instance in Connie Scheele's "river rocks" series (halfway down this page) and of Elizabeth Brimelow's recent "shingle" series (see some here). The Contemporary Art Quilt show at Uffington in 2003 had stones actually in the quilt - ah I've found the catalogue of the show. "Depressions - Winter 2003" is by Becky Knight and incorporates 2000 stones, painkilling tablets, and builders scree - it weighs 17kg.Using pebbles in a quilt might be a way to justify keeping them? I can't resist picking up a beautiful pebble here and there, and now all my plant pots are topped, indeed overflowing.

A favourite type is "hag stones", flint with holes worn right through; you find them on the shingle beaches of the south coast. One old story (which I have been unable to find on the internet) is that if you have an enemy and look at them through the hole in the hag stone, you can put an evil curse on them. It does look scary, especially because this stone has one hole that goes all the way through and another that goes halfway -but I was thinking kind thoughts while looking into the camera, so be assured that no harm will come from this.

And while we're on this rocky topic, these stones are part of Abbey Cwmhir in mid-Wales -The abbey was started in the 12th century and the church would have been as large as York Minster - even though it was in what then must have been the middle of nowhere. But the transept and choir were never built, just the nave. Like all monastic institutions, it was dissolved by Henry VIII in 1536-7 and has been crumbling away ever since - here's what's left -Five of the arches were quickly taken away to Llandiloes, where they are now part of the church. Apparently the angels above them date to 1542.One final stone - this headstone in Llandiloes churchyard commemorates Sarah Jarman, who died in 1859 aged 105 -