Branch

During my MA in 2003 I visited Epping Forest near my childhood home and wrapped white acrylic yarn around the trunks of a copse of young trees. Over the years I revisited the copse and in 2018 removed the yarn, which had soaked up lichen and matter from the woods, creating a mottled grey lichen stiffened yarn. 

For two years I kept this precious bundle and after gathering two branches on a woodland walk in Derbyshire decided to 3D 'print' the branches in knit. Through trial and error I replicated the branches in hand knit using double-point needles, increase and decrease, carefully following the twists and undulations of each branch. Knowing how to make a sock was a great advantage. 

The yarn passed through my fingers in slow, puzzled learning. Dissatisfied by one branch, I unwound and re-knitted it to improve upon the accuracy of my first effort… and, now these forms exist, soft, foldable, reminding me of snakeskin. What shedding occurred as I made? What growth?