Textile Artist: Expressive Stitches A no-rules guide to creating original textile art

Transform your ideas on creative fabric embellishment for textile art that's full meaning and astounding texture, in this inspiring book by award-winning textile art tutor and artist Jan Dowson.

Whether it's a landscape, a garden, an animal or a powerful memory of a place or object, Jan shows you how she develops them all into beautifully stitched representations that exude awe-inspiring detail, colour and expression.

Discover Jan's unique sketchbook process, where she stores and collects natural items, and explores different patterns, textures, media and markings to cultivate her final design. See her simple yet effective methods for transforming her fabric for stitching, including dyeing, embellishing and stamping. Then, watch her transform an unassuming square of fabric into a contemporary piece of art brimming with colour, texture and extraordinary stitched markings - all made through the combination of traditional sewing techniques and other media.

Following a fascinating, illustrated step-by step chapter on Jan's key techniques, join her as she takes you through the stages of three types of work for which she is most renowned - the stitched landscape, the memory cloth and the bird sculpture. Each project also includes a break down of the materials, tools and techniques used, so that can understand as well as see the development of her astounding, mixed-media creations. Throughout the book, a gallery of Jan's work complements her techniques and projects, showing how to truly push the limits on your stitcheries. These are stunning pieces that will open your eyes and turn your own creative concepts into original, personal work.

Award-winning textile art tutor and artist Jan Dowson has over 20 years of teaching experience in the UK. She won the prestigious Beryl Dean National Teaching Award in 2015, and was the 2014/15 winner of the UK's City & Guild's Gold Medal of Excellence.

She loves to help beginners to start on their own creative journeys, and so delivers absorbing, fun workshops regularly as well as offering talks and taking part in the Embroiderers' Guild's summer schools around the UK. Jan exhibits her work frequently and has experienced great success over the years. She loves hand embroidery - and never feels fully satisfied unless the surfaces she works on are completely covered in stitch. Her finished pieces include machine embroidery, applique and mixed media. She works intuitively and strongly believes that there are no rules for creativity, focusing on the freedom of working naturally and organically, with a view to developing ideas that will produce unique and exciting results. Jan lives in north-east Lincolnshire, UK, with her husband Derek and dog Bertie.Find Jan on Facebook @Jan Dowson - Textile Artist/Teacher.