My father equally loved a good tale and when I was old enough I loved to meet him from work to walk, talk and look at everyday things and the beautiful buildings I grew up with in Norwich (my home city).

Her next book Connected Cloth: Creating Collaborative Textile Projects (co-authored with Anne Kelly who is also soon to be featured on Textileartist.org) is due out in Autumn 2013. Kamiko uses whole paper sheets which through kneading, crumpling and flexing in the hands becomes more malleable and feels like cloth. I happily applied that same approach to some of my found papers which indeed made them softer and easier to stitch. Our relationship with the local and global environment is a fragile one. No one who has grown up in the flat Norfolk landscape as a child can fail to make connections between change and man’s impact on the land through farming, building and use of world resources. Medway Gap: Textile Landscape by Cas Holmes is published by Batsford. Artworks by Cas Holmes, photographed by Jacqui HurstThere’s something about woollen felt that appeals to the senses. Is it the warmth, the colours, the texture, or something else? This is one of the most difficult questions to answer. I find the Australian landscape inspirational, full of texture and amazing flora and fauna, but alien. It tells its own story and it is one where I can only, as yet, find the most transient of connections. For the Aboriginal artist, the landscape tells its own complex stories of place and connection to people. European settlers brought with them Western conventions of pictorial landscape painting to interpret the land. At best my experience is only ‘fleetingly felt’ as I travel and feels ‘borrowed.’ Finding a more solid connection to place takes time, if it comes at all. Conversely, I can also stiffen my cloth temporarily by applying paint and collage mediums to make it easier to handle for free motion stitching. Those techniques are explained in more detail in the book in relation to the creation of cloth journals. Martha Fieber literally stitches blades of grass and single blossoms that collectively engage the eye, while Wen Redmond creates digital landscapes that expertly incorporate photography and stitch. Monika Kinner uses yarn to create rich and chunky fields and sky, while Roberta Wagner uses paper, fabric and thread to create more abstract landscapes. Shin-hee Chin wraps up our journey with quilt-sized tree branches that reflect light and are entirely stitched by hand.

Developing your artistic narrative is an individual journey. There is no short cut or easy way. I spend considerable time thinking through ideas and developing the processes behind them, both as an artist and a teacher. Why do I consider the act of drawings and keeping a record is important?

Though Ahmed works in painting, video, and installation art, the Azerbaijani artist is most known for his fantastical carpets and embroideries. In these works, he playfully riffs on traditional weaving patterns, creating new rugs (though sometimes ripping apart old ones) that feature optical illusions, acid drips, and pixelated glitches. Ahmed’s process begins on the computer, where he uses Photoshop to create these psychedelic distortions. He then prints the design to-scale on paper before handing it off to a team of 20 to 25 weavers. But I can’t say when exactly I realised my use of found materials connected to the environments in which they were found. Instead, I think the process of connecting to place found me. You might not make it to an art class with Cas, but this book allows you to share her teaching in the comfort of your own workspace. You’ll love it. Our connection to the landscape and the natural world is deeply felt and meaningful. And as I recognised its value in informing my own practice, I wanted to share that with other makers. Ksenia Shinkovskaya’s inspiration came from her life experiences and emotions. What can you call upon to inspire your artwork?

Textile Landscape by Cas Holmes is published by Batsford. Artworks by Cas Holmes, photographed by Jacqui Hurst The chapter ‘Painting with Cloth’ especially explores the various ways in which paint and print processes can be combined with textiles. Methods presented include straight-forward techniques to colour cloth in which colour or dye is directly applied to cloth. But I also share tips on using printing and resist techniques that can be layered on top of coloured cloth But I still found myself drawn to that which was familiar, such as small gardens, washing hanging on a line, power lines, etc. While the details were different (kangaroos instead of cows and sheep, different plants in gardens, etc.), I still found a familiar connection. Cas Holmes: Tea Flora Tales at The Knitting and Stitching show

Words of advice to textile artists

An article Sketch to Stitch relating drawing to stitch appears in Stitch Magazine, August/September issue 2013 (out the end of July). For more information about Stitch Magazine see our recent article: Top five textile art magazines. I want the reader to be as excited as I am by this ‘in-between world’ of cloth, paint and stitch to represent landscape aspects in their own work. So to that end, the book shares a variety of techniques for manipulating both paper and fabric to help make stitching easier and more interesting. In the early 1970s, Italian conceptual artist Boetti was thinking about collaborating with Afghan artisans. As a test run, he asked local craftswomen to create two embroideries, one with the words “December 16, 2040” (the 100th anniversary of the artist’s birth) and the other with the text “July 11, 2023” (the day he predicted he would die). The embroiderers strayed from Boetti’s original designs, however, surrounding the dates with floral patterns and decorations. Boetti—interested in the concept of chance in artmaking—enjoyed this surprise, and thus began his decades-long partnership with Afghan craftswomen. Whether you are an experienced textile art practitioner who wants to explore the landscape as a subject, or you’re a new textile artist who needs to start from scratch, Cas Holmes – Textile Landscape: Painting with Cloth in Mixed Media is a great book for you.