What a great experience! We had so many interested visitors and I enjoyed chatting to as many as I could manage. I led this project with Thames Valley Contemporary Textiles and as a group we feel very proud that we completed this project and brought it all together.

Thank you to K.L. Bevan of The Crafter for the photo of myself - I of course forgot to take as many photographs as I should have, and didn't even remember to get a photo of myself at the show.

The countdown begins ... less than 24 hours to go to installation day of the Thames Valley Contemporary Textiles exhibition 'Halfway Between' at Olympia, London. I'm getting nervous about the delivery and installation because Olympia is SO BIG and there will be so many exhibitors all putting their stands up all at once. But hopefully we have done enough planning and preparation that it will all come together.

This is a preliminary image of one of my pieces 'Gravidity'. I will have two pieces at the exhibition, and we have 20 artists exhibiting. Come and find us ... we are somewhere in the middle, on stand F60. I will be there stewarding on Thursday morning and evening and Friday morning.

Last chance to pop in to South Hill Park and see two of my pieces in the Bracknell Gallery. There is lots to see in the main house, and my work is in the Gallery above the Wilde Theatre. 

Bracknell Gallery Open: Mon- Sat 9am- 9.30pm, Sun 11am- 9.30pm (free entry).

There's a cafe too and a lovely redone children's play area in the beautiful grounds outside.

Interesting to see what happened to my knitting over almost three weeks at Bucks Open Studios. After installing the work I wondered if any bunnies or other animals would decide I had created a comfy lounging area for them. But although I spotted one snagged thread which I assume was from a cat landing, it seemed that I only had to worry about the weather. 

The rain came and went during the period of the Open Studios, and it gave us some pretty heavy showers at times. The lace knitting is very stretchy naturally and started to sag a little over time, but with the added weight of water from the rain it sank right down into the tyres. Thanks to Janet for recording it as the rain stopped. The last picture in the gallery shows how the knitting sank into a bowl shape and the yarn took on a two-tone effect as it began to dry out.

I was also pleased with how the work looked once the grass, clover and daisies started to grow. I thought it looked better than when the grass had been freshly cut. It helped to 'bed-in' the tyres and was rather lovely when it started to grow through the holes of the lace.

I installed my work in the sculpture garden on Friday. I'm very pleased with how it has all come together. Affixing the knitting to the tyres was more fiddly than I imagined. For a while it seemed that I was creating knotted sculpture with fishing line that I had got into a terrible tangle. But with the help of an extra pair of hands from my other half, we were able to get the technique down to a fine art and got the lashing finished.

I love the contrast of indoor and outdoor, hard and soft materials. It also looks like giant liquorice allsorts from a distance...


Come and visit ... Fernbank, Court Lane, Burnham, SL1 8DN
Thursday/Friday: 12noon to 4pm
Saturday/Sunday: 11am to 6pm
Until 23rd June

'Where do I stand?' - photographed in the church yard. See it for yourself from next weekend - Burnham

All are warmly welcomed to the garden art trail in Burnham next month - where I will be exhibiting 2 new pieces of sculpture. My first adventures in outdoor work - and I'm very excited about seeing my work in a new environment.