Rural Collusions

I am currently working on a project with Ruth Richmond called Rural Collusions. The work will be exhibited at Thornham walks, Thornham Magna and Lackford Lakes, Lackford from Easter 2011. 

My work for this project is concentrating on organisms that grow in rural places and assist in the recycling process in nature, for instance fungi that grow on dead and rotting items.

I wrote this pattern for my knitted mushrooms by playing around with my knitting and looking at images of chanterelles. Nicola Gouldsmith from Halfpenny Home (Halfpenny Home Blog) is very kindly sponsoring my work and her first input was to teach me to knit-in-the-round, she’s a great teacher and I was soon able to make up my pattern. I’ve made over thirty mushrooms now and have even got the ladies from Halfpenny Home knitting groups to follow my pattern and add their own mushroom to my infestation. I am using natural fibres so that as the work is left in situ for a year and it is added to or recycled by nature- our rural collusion, it is not detrimental to the environment. I have even been using natural dyes with Nicola so that the work is even more kind to its surroundings.