My mother's mother spent most of her life sick with something or another, when she was a child she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and the family (all 12 children and a mother who had enough of an alcoholic husband) packed up and headed to California from Cleveland on a doctor's suggestion. She had toxemia when my mother was born and spent 6 more months in the hospital then my mother did. She also had to find a job a few years later when they lost the farm--literally.

My mother tells wonderful stories of my great-grandmothers, both of who she got to spend lots of time with. One was from Ireland, one was from Wales via Charlotte Michigan. I used to spend hours listening to my mother weave tales especially told to her by my Irish great-grandmother as she would slip into a delightful Irish brogue during the telling.

One day when my mother was about 6, she was taught how to crochet-- this sent the other grandmother into a tizzy of massive proportions and my mother had no choice but to learn how to knit as well. It's a good thing too because in the 50s when she was in highschool and wanted to wear the tight pullover sweaters that were all the rage, she discovered that she was allergic to wool.

I grew up watching my mother pick up a crochet hook as naturally as knitting needles and it never occurred to me until I got around other needleworkers that there could be a preference, nay a prejudice for one genre over the other.

The stories, the craft........... I sometimes imagine that it brings me closer to two amazingly strong women that I only wish that I could have met and known.